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CHALLENGE OF THE 
CHURCH 


RATIONALISM REFUTED 


A Repty to THE OREGON RATIONALIST Society, CONTAINING 
EXPosiITIONS OF CosmMoGony, INSPIRATION, PRAYER, EtTCc., 
Wauicu Orrer PRAcTICAL SOLUTIONS OF CERTAIN 
GREAT IssuES BETWEEN SCIENCE AND THE BIBLE. 


BY / 


GEORGE H. BENNETT, 


Former Professor Systematic Theology, Portland University. 
Member of the Oregon Conference, Methodist Episcopal Church. 
1914 


sy 


CINCINNATI: 
PRESS OF THE METHODIST BOOK CONCERN 


CopyriGHT, 1914, By 
Grorce H. BENNETT. 


Reberently Inscribed 
TO THE 
MEMORY OF ALL WHO HAVE SUFFERED 
FOR THE WORD OF GOD. 


Contents. 


¢ 
PAGE 
I. Tse Brste—Is rt INsprrep ? 


(1) A Human Book, - - - - eae 
(2) A Divine Book, - - - - - 13 


(3) Divine Insprration LimitTep IN ScrRIPTURE, 19 


II. Cosmocony Artests INSPIRATION. 


(1) Moses tHE Fatruer or Evoxortion, - 24 

(2) ADAM AND PreE-HIsToRIC MAN, - - 36 

(3) OrntcIn or Eartuty Lirg, - . - A483 

III. Propecy FuiFintep ATTEsTs INSPIRATION, - 50 
IV. Triumpss or Brste ATTEst INSPIRATION, - - 54 
V. Is Jesus Gop? - te - - - 60 
VI. Is Prayer «a FatLure? - - - - - 81 
VII. Is tae Cuurcnu a Farwure? - - - . 113 
VIII. Genesis or Matter, Mind, AND Forcn, - - 127 


IX. Ortern anp Nature or Law, - - - 138 


X. ScreENcE AND IMMORTALITY, - - - - 145 


PREFACE. 


Turis volume is presented to the thoughtful public in 
response to a challenge to the Church issued by the 
Oregon Rationalist Association. 

The challenge of the Oregon Rationalist Society 
to the clergymen of Portland included the following: 
(1) The Bible; (2) The Christ; (3) The Church; 
(4) Character and leadership; (5) Practical applica- 
_ tions. 

It is with the hope of aiding in the correction of 
some errors of Biblical interpretation, and of defin- 
ing the position of the Church in a manner at once 
Scriptural, scientific, and defensible. 


GrorcE H. BENNETT. 
Dallas, Oregon. 


CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


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THE BIBLE—IS IT INSPIRED? 


Tue rationalist declares the Bible is simply Jewish 
literature devoid of divine inspiration, and is of no 
greater significance than the sacred books of other 
races. 

The Bible has come down to us from Hebrew 
sources, from a people peculiarly endowed with genius 
for religious things. It is also the sacred Book of 
the Christian world. It is not a code of civil law, 
nor is it a manual of physical science, but is the oracle 
of ethical and religious truth and duty. The Bible 
is twofold in its origin—human and divine. 


(1) Tue Brste a Human Boox. 


The Bible comprises human elements. Its title 
is medieval in origin and signifies The Book. It 
was written in human languages—Hebrew, Chaldee, 
and Greek. The Old and New Testaments are the 
gradual accretion of a literature which covered a 
period of sixteen hundred years. The sixty-six books 
were written at different times, in widely separated 
places, and by some thirty-six authors. The Chris- 
tian canon consists of five books of Moses, which em- 
body cosmogony, the Ten Commandments with their 
accessory statutes, moral, civil, and ceremonial—all 

11 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


of which are set in a historical background of singular 
simplicity and grandeur. Then follow twelve his- 
torical books, which record the history of the Hebrews 
from the death of Moses to their restoration from 
Babylonian exile. Next follow five poetical books— 
a drama, a psalter, two books of proverbial philos- 
ophy, and a song of love. Then follow seventeen 
books of prophecy. 

The New Testament comprises four Gospels, 
which record the life and words of Jesus Christ; the 
Acts of the Apostles, and founding of the Church. 
We find also thirteen epistles of Paul, the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, seven general epistles by the apostles, 
and lastly the apocalypse of John. 

Here in a rapid glance we see an ancient library 
of history, law, theology, philosophy, poetry, proph- 
ecy, letters, and biography. They vary in the style 
and diction of their authors, and, according to the 
literary usage of their times, employ parable, alle- 
gory, simile, metaphor, and other figures of speech. 
Most of the books bear the names of their authors— 
some of whom were kings, some were prophets, some 
shepherds, some fishermen. One was a tax-gatherer, 
another a tent-maker, and another a physician. So 
the Bible contains the human element. It is printed 
at the present time in five hundred and twenty-six 
languages. The Bible is the most popular book in 
the world to-day, owing to its literary excellence, but 
chiefly as it meets the ethical and religious needs of 
mankind. 


12 


THE BIBLE—IS IT INSPIRED? 


(2) Tue Bisie a Divine Boox. 


The divine element in the Bible, however, gives 
the volume its surpassing significance over the sacred 
books of all other races. This divine element is 
plainly witnessed in the divine inspiration moving on - 
minds of the authors of Scripture. The rationalist, 
however, declares the discrepancies in Scripture in- 
validate its claim to divine inspiration. 

The Christian world to-day is pondering this 
question: Do the discrepancies found in the Bible 
invalidate its claims to divine inspiration? 

Discrepancies unquestionably exist in various por- 
tions of the sacred volume. The greater number of 
these, however, may be satisfactorily explained by 
the simple rules of literary usage. Such disagree- 
ments, of course, do not invalidate Biblical inspira- 
tion. Nevertheless, discrepancies have been pointed 
out which impugn the justice of God. It seems 
hardly necessary to affirm that if any portion of 
Scripture discredits the holiness or justice of God, 
divine inspiration must be denied that portion of 
Scripture. 

It has been declared certain portions of the Old 
Testament present corrupt and erroneous conceptions 
of God. The prevailing idea of the Deity among the 
nations of ancient times, and during the era of Israel- 
itish history, was of a Being of great wisdom and 
power, but jealous and vindictive in disposition, and 
given to inciting deeds of rapine and slaughter. The 
many gods and goddesses among them were all of a 


13 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


lustful, thievish, or murderous spirit, if we are to 
credit the crimes said to have been incited by them. 

The Hebrews are declared to have been tinctured 
with this idea of the Deity, and to have left many 
evidences of the fact in their sacred writings. Some 
of their wars are described as being displays of such 
“Divine Providence.” Several striking illustrations 
of the prevalence of this idea of the character of 
God among the Hebrews are pointed out in the Old 
Testament. Commands to destroy the Canaanites 
with their old men, women, and children, together 
with the kindred peoples of that nation, were at- 
tributed to God. Wars upon neighboring tribes, in 
which even the innocent and helpless were slain, are 
all attributed to God as having incited them, and by 
His ‘“providential” interference giving victory to 
Israel. It is contended by the objector that such 
deeds of barbaric cruelty, when attributed to God as 
having incited them, clearly disprove the divine in- 
spiration of such portions of Scripture. 

An illustration of the vindictiveness and partiality 
attributed to God is found in the summary destruction 
of Uzzah, who thoughtlessly extended his hand to 
steady the ark of God when the beasts stumbled which 
were hauling it. The relentless wrath of God was 
kindled by this simple act of Uzzah, and vengeance 
fell upon him at once without an opportunity for 
explanation or making amends. The people who wit- 
nessed the destruction of Uzzah were offended at the 
act of injustice. It is contended Uzzah did not wrong 
any one by his act, but rather gave evidence of com- 

14 


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THE BIBLE—IS IT INSPIRED? 


mendable devotion in steadying the ark and prevent- 
ing its possible injury. As an act of leze majesty 
the offense of Uzzah could hardly have been treated 
with such cruelty and vindictiveness by a holy God. 
It is declared the God described here certainly can 
not be the Heavenly Father described in the New 
Testament. 

Objection is also made that King David and his 
followers at one time ate the holy shewbread, a grave 
offense against the sanctity of the holy place and the 
divine ordinance. It is declared also the priests pro- 
faned the holy temple—yet in both these instances 
the acts of sacrilege were condoned by Jehovah— 
while the zealous Uzzah in his devotion was overtaken 
by swift vengeance for his trivial offense. It is 
claimed these evils, being attributed to God by the 
Biblical historian, utterly disprove his divine inspira- 
tion in these cases. 

The treatment accorded King David was in re- 
markable contrast with that accorded Uzzah by Je- 
hovah, and very well illustrates the partiality at- 
tributed to God by the Old Testament writer in the 
case of Uriah. The king robbed Uriah of his wife, 
committed adultery with her, broke up their home, 
caused the death of the unsuspecting husband, and 
so became a stench in the nostrils of Israel and worthy 
of death by stoning according to the law of Moses. 
But did Jehovah smite David with swift and unre- 
lenting vengeance? Not according to the historian. 
These crimes of the king richly deserved swift venge- 
ance—however, a few tears, a little fasting, a threat 

15 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


of the sword upon his posterity, and the death of the 
illegitimate child—these condoned the offenses of the 
king—and he was even permitted to keep the wife of 
Uriah! The Biblical historian certainly leaves God 
in anything but an enviable light in this instance, and 
clearly disproves all claim to his divine inspiration 
in this case. 

Another example of capriciousness attributed to 
God by the Old Testament writer is cited in the in- 
stance of numbering the people of Israel by King 
David. He ordered a census taken of his kingdom. 
This was an act most reasonable in itself, and some- 
thing which any king who was constantly at war 
ought not to neglect. It accords with the law of 
“counting the costs” mentioned in the New Testa- 
ment. The king ought to know his military strength: 
but, according to the Biblical writer, God was in- 
tensely angered, and for this act which injured no 
one, and in no way impugned the character or veracity 
of God, did God most severely punish—not the of- 
fending king—but unoffending Israel! The Biblical 
writer declares God slew seventy thousand persons— 
for an offense they did not commit! What would the 
enlightened world say to-day if some writer should 
accuse the Almighty with slaying seventy thousand 
of our citizens for an offense of our Chief Magistrate, 
an offense they did not commit? The enlightened 
world would declare the accusation false, and utterly 
unlike the Heavenly Father, who was revealed by 
Jesus Christ, to do so. The world would absolutely 
refuse to believe it the act of God. The objector 

16 


THE BIBLE—IS IT INSPIRED? 


therefore declares it to be utterly beyond belief that 
God ever inspired any one to write such accounts of 
His dealings with mankind. 

An instance in which injustice is attributed to 
Jehovah by the Biblical writer is found in the Old 
Testament laws concerning carrion. These laws are 
evidently contradictory. The law recorded in Lev. 
22:8 relates to the priests and says, “That which 
dieth of itself, or is torn of beasts, he shall not eat 
to defile himself therewith; I am the Lord.” In Lev. 
17:15 the law relates to the laity, “And every soul 
that eateth that which dieth of itself, or that which 
is torn of beasts, whether he be homeborn or a stran- 
ger, he shall wash his clothes, and bathe himself in 
water, and be unclean until the even: then shall he 
be clean. But if he wash them not, nor bathe his 
flesh, then shall he bear his iniquity.” 

Compare these declarations with the version of 
the law found in Deut. 14:21, which reads, “Ye 
shall not eat of anything which dieth of itself; thou 
mayest give it unto the stranger that is within thy 
gates, that he may eat it; or thou mayest sell it to 
the foreigner: for thou art an holy people unto the 
Lord thy God.” 

There exists an unmistakable contradiction be- 
tween the laws recorded in the two books. The law 
in Leviticus is reasonable and just. It is a direct and 
implied prohibition of the use of carrion or diseased 
meat as food by the Hebrews and aliens as well. 
Ethically, it teaches the equality of all persons before 
the law; religiously, it teaches that God is holy, and 

2 17 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


not a respecter of persons; and as a measure of hy- 
giene it was calculated to prevent uncleanness and 
disease, and to promote pure habits and good health. 
It is conceivable that God inspired this law, for it is 
in full accord with the Golden Rule taught by Jesus, 
and would tend to prevent sickness and suffering from 
the use of diseased meat. It would consistently teach 
the Hebrews the holiness of God, whose “eyes are 
too pure to look upon iniquity,” and who is “no re- 
specter of persons.” 

The law in Deuteronomy, however, is unwise and 
unjust, considered from either the ethical or religious 
or hygienic standpoint. It is a direct contradiction 
of the Golden Rule, which requires, “All things there- 
fore whatsoever ye would that men should do unto 
you, even so do ye also unto them: for this is the law 
and the prophets.” This law is also a contradiction 
of the well-known laws of hygiene.and good health, 
and following its direction might lead to disease, suf- 
fering, and death from the use of diseased meat as 
food when given or sold to the stranger or foreigner. 
The idea that God ever commanded any one to give 
or sell diseased meat to a neighbor for food is de- 
clared by the objector to be simply preposterous. As 
a religious measure this version of the law contra- 
dicts the holiness of God by showing that God legal- 
ized to the Jew the sale of meat unlawful to be eaten. 
It bemeans the character of God, and must have 
proven demeaning to the Hebrews by developing in 
them a narrow and contemptuous spirit. The law 
recorded in Deuteronomy simply reflects the bigoted 

18 . 


THE BIBLE—IS IT INSPIRED? 


spirit of the Hebrews and discloses their supreme 
contempt for the Gentiles. It is not conceivable that 
God ever inspired such a law. The portions of the 
law in Deuteronomy, therefore, which commanded the 
gift or sale of carrion to the stranger or foreigner 
to be used as food are clearly without divine authority, 
and divine inspiration must be denied their author. 

We therefore abandon the old theory of inspira- 
tion, which holds everything in the Scripture to be 
divinely inspired. That theory has long compelled 
the Church to occupy an indefensible position. We 
must construct a theory of Biblical inspiration which 
will accord with the facts. If any writer in the 
Scripture has actually attributed injustice to God, it 
surely is no disparagement of divine inspiration to 
admit that fact. Such a fact only disproves the 
divine inspiration of the writer in such an instance. 
The honor of God actually demands that we admit 
such facts, if they exist, that God may be vindicated. 
it is inconceivable that the Holy God ever inspired 
any false statements concerning His own character, 
or ever gave to mankind an unjust law; and the theory 
of Biblical inspiration which requires us to believe He 
did so is manifestly false and misleading. Such a 
theory ought to be abandoned. 


(3) Divine Inspiration Limirep IN Scripture. 


The correct theory of Biblical inspiration must 
be in accord with all the facts. Two great facts 
stand out in bold relief: (1) The claim is nowhere 
made in the Bible that every portion of it is the 

19 


IJ 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


product of divine inspiration. The claim has merely 
been assumed. (2) Actual discrepancies do exist in 
the Bible in matters of law, history, and the por- 
trayal of the character of God. In view of these 
facts, it is certain some portions of the Scripture must 
be denied all claim to divine inspiration. There is 
a distinct line of demarcation between the inspired 
and the uninspired in the Bible. The great circle of 
Scripture has within it, therefore, a smaller circle, 
which embraces all that was written by inspiration. 
But who shall fix and define the boundaries of that 
circle of divine inspiration? 

Jesus Christ and Saint Paul have actually defined 
\\the boundaries of divine inspiration in the Word of 
| God. Christ and His gospel are clearly the con- 
' summation of the Scriptures. The purpose of God 

in giving an inspired Scripture to the world was to 
| present the true prophetic and historical foundations 
| of the Messiahship, together with the ethical and re- 
— ligious doctrines of the Messiah. These were the es- 
_ sential factors. This is seen to be true when we con- 
‘sider the words of Christ and of Saint Paul. 

Jesus pointed to the purpose of the inspired Scrip- 
ture when He said to the doubting Jews, “Ye search 
the Scriptures—and these are they which bear wit- 
ness of Me.” (John 5:39.) It was the purpose of 
Scripture to bear witness of Christ as a character 


of prophecy and history, and as a Teacher of religion 

and ethics also. Therefore, if we find anything in 

Old Testament history, law, poetry, biography, or 

prophecy which has no relation to the prophetic or 
20 


THE BIBLE—IS IT INSPIRED? 


historical foundations of the Messiahship, we are not 
bound to believe it inspired. It may be true, but not 
inspired, for only those prophecies and historical por- 
tions which “‘bear witness” of Christ are inspired. 

The inspired Scripture “bears witness” of Jesus 
also in His ethical and religious teachings. It was 
clearly the purpose of God, in giving an inspired 
Scripture to the world, to inculcate piety and morality 
among men, and all in strict accord with the gospel 
of the Messiah when He should make His appear- 
ance. The ethical and religious teachings of the Old 
Testament must be in strict accord with the teachings 
of Christ; and if they are not in strict accord, they 
are not inspired. This is clear, for Jesus said, “All 
things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should 
do unto you, even so do ye also unto them: for this 
is the law and the prophets.” (Matt. 7:12.) The 
genuineness and authenticity of the “law and the 
prophets” depends, therefore, upon their strict accord 
with the ethical and religious teachings of Christ. 
Great force is given to this conclusion also by the 
words of Jesus in Matt. 22: 37-40: “Thou shalt love 
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy 
soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and 
great commandment. And a second like unto it is 
this, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On 
these two commandments hangeth the whole law and 
the prophets.” Therefore, if anything is found in the 
“law and the prophets” which violates this teaching 
of Christ, it certainly was not inspired. 

Saint Paul also pointed to the true test of di- 

21 


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THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


vine inspiration in the Scripture when he wrote to 
Timothy, saying, “Every Scripture inspired of God 
is also profitable for teaching, for reproof, for cor- 
rection, for instruction which is in righteousness ; that 
the man of God may be complete, furnished com- 
pletely unto every good work.” If there be found 
anything, therefore, in the Scriptures which does not 
inculeate righteousness in harmony with the gospel 
of Christ, it is not inspired. Revelation has been pro- 
gressive in its unfolding and development of ethical 
and religious truths, but God has never mixed error 
with truth in His revelations. 

Paul did not claim divine inspiration for every- 
thing he wrote in the Scriptures, and so divine in- 
spiration can not properly be claimed for everything 
written by other authors. Many of the questions so 
heatedly discussed by Biblical critics to-day really lie 
outside the circle of inspiration. Such questions as 
the evolution of man from the brutes, the status of 
the first men in the world; and the question as to the 
historical character of Jonah, and what David paid 
for the threshing floor, and the personal identity of 
the writers of Genesis and Isaiah and the Psalms: 
all these are entirely outside the province of inspira- 
tion in the Scriptures and are not involved in it. 

It was not the purpose of divine inspiration to 
teach an inerrant history of the human race, or even 
of the Hebrews. It was not its purpose to teach an 
inerrant science of geology or astronomy, zoology or 
botany. It was not its purpose to teach an inerrant 
system of physical philosophy. But the purpose of 

22 


THE BIBLE—IS IT INSPIRED? 


divine inspiration in the Hebrew Scripture evidently 
was to teach the world Christianity, an inerrant sys- 
tem of ethical and religious truth. 

There is much truth in the world to-day which can 
lay no claim to divine inspiration. There is also a 
great body of truth in the Bible which can lay no 
claim to divine inspiration—nevertheless it is truth. 
Christianity is truth—but all truth is not Christianity. 
If the critic will but recognize the province of in- 
spiration within the volume of the Scripture as Christ 
and Saint Paul defined it, Christianity will be found 
invulnerable. And if the critic will but measure 
everything in the Scripture by the standard of love, 
upon which “hangeth all the law and the prophets,” 
as Christ declared, everything derogatory and contra- 
dictory to Christianity can be quickly discerned and 
accorded its true value. Christianity is bounded 
within the Scriptures by divine inspiration, and is 
safeguarded against encroachments of error by that 
divinely appointed test and standard of Christ. The 
Bible comprises all the ethical and religious truths 
taught in other sacred books, and also teaches many 
important truths not found in other sacred books, as 
atonement, regeneration, pardon, and laws of love. 


23 


II. 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS DIVINE INSPIRA- 
TION. 


(1) Moses tue Fatuer or Evo.urion. 


‘ue rationalist scoffs at Genesis, assuming it teaches 
the world was created in a literal week and contra- 
dicts all science. Moses, however, was the father 
of the doctrine of evolution. 

The cosmogony of Moses is one of the most fas- 
cinating studies in literature. Genesis contains the 
oldest record of facts and principles relating to nat- 
ural science in our possession to-day. No production 
of the pen, however, has been the subject of keener 
criticism or of greater misconception. Genesis has 
been assailed chiefly because it is supposed to con- 
tradict the teachings of astronomy and geology, and 
especially the modern hypothesis of evolution. 

The correct interpretation of Genesis will be 
found only when we place ourselves at the historical 
standpoint of Moses, who gave this remarkable vol- 
ume to the Hebrew people. We will therefore be im- 
pressed, first of all, that Moses was preparing a nar- 
rative of world-building suited to the Oriental mind— 
a narrative presented in allegory. The Hebrews were 
just emerging from Egyptian slavery with its idolatry 
and superstitions. Moses was narrating in allegory 
the evolutions of the physical world; and moreover, 

24 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


he was laying the foundations among them for the 
development of a pure system of religion and ethics. 
It was his purpose also to awaken among the Hebrew 
slaves a national spirit, as they were now to take 
their place among the nations of the earth and had 
before them a splendid mission in the world. 

The “Beginning” located. The question now to 
be considered is this: At what point or event in the 
mighty past of cosmic history does Moses open his 
narrative? Does he carry us back to the very birth 
of the elements of nature for his “beginning?” It 
seems highly improbable. The moral and religious 
instruction of the Hebrews would not require it. The 
purposes of Moses would be fully met by outlining 
the history of the most prominent features of the 
world, such as the land and sky, the sea, day and 
night, the seasons, and the common forms of animal 
and vegetable life. Genesis does give an outline of 
the history of these features of the world. 

The opening statement of Genesis announces, “In 
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” 
What is meant by “heavens” and by the “earth?” 
Genesis contains its own definitions of these terms. 
It declares, “And God called the firmament heaven— 
and God called the dry land earth.’ The term 
“heavens,” therefore, meant the open expanse of at- 
mosphere; and dry land—not the planet Earth—was 
meant by the term “earth.” 

“In the beginning.” There have been many be- 
ginnings. The present physical order of the world 
had a beginning. It has not always existed. There 

25 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


was a time in the geologic history of the world when 
there were visible to it no sun, moon, OF stars; when 
there were no alternating daylight and darkness ; 
when there was no blue sky or dry land or sea; 
when there were no changing seasons, and when no 
life existed upon the earth. The present physical 
order of nature had a beginning. It occurred at the 
close of a preceding order of things. In that pre- 
ceding order of nature the globe was incandescent 
and self-luminous, we are told by the astronomer. 
The world was then in its star period. The star 
period came to an end, and was followed by the 
planet era. The commencement of the planet period 
of the world was the “beginning” described by Moses. 

A comparison of the Mosaic account of creation 
with the story told by the natural scientist is inter- 
esting. The narration in Genesis opens with the be- 
ginning of the planet era of the world, a time when 
dry land, ocean, atmosphere, and darkness were the 
grand natural features of the world. Astronomy de- 
clares just such a condition did exist upon the earth 
at the close of the star period of its history. Genesis 
and astronomy agree in this. The world was of vast 
age when the era came in which Moses placed his 
“beginning ;” and the habitable era was very far dis- 
tant in the future. The world was then “waste and 
void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” 

Comparative geology tells an interesting story of 
the changes which occurred at the close of the star 
period and the beginning of the planet period of the 
world’s history. During a cycle of immense duration 

26 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


the globe had been in an incandescent state. This 
fact accords with the nebular hypothesis and also with 
the planetesimal theory of the origin of the earth. It 
had twinkled and shone by its own effulgence, a veri- 
table sun, while coursing around its great central 
luminary. But during countless ages heat was radi- 
ated and lost. Cooling was slow, but constant. En- 
crustation at last began. As cooling progressed the 
watery vapors gathered in the upper atmosphere, and 
fleecy clouds appeared. The clouds gradually multi- 
plied; and a time came at last when the world was 
enveloped in a thick body of cloud, and the earth, 
which as yet had never discerned a ray of light from 
sun or star owing to its own effulgence, sank into 
gathering gloom. When the clouds thickened in the 
upper regions of the atmosphere the rains began. 
Continuous showers fell from the higher strata into 
the lower strata of the heated air, and were as con- 
stantly returned in the form of vapor. The deepen- 
ing gloom was illumined only by the lurid glare of 
the expiring fires of the cooling surface, or by the 
vivid flash of thunderbolts. And so the world sank 
into a night of vast duration and of overwhelming 
tempests. The heat must have been insupportable 
and the gases stifling. Ages passed away. The lower 
atmosphere became cooler and the clouds hung lower 
and became denser. As the sterile land cooled, water 
gathered in the low places, and the world was 
shrouded in mist and cloud to the very surface. The 
world then slumbered in universal night. Ages rolled 
away, and the pools of water broadened into lakes 
27 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. > 


and the lakes became seas. Science plainly points 
to that time, mentioned in Genesis as the “beginning,” 
when “the earth was waste and void, and darkness 
was upon the face of the deep.” 

The First Day. That era of darkness was des- 
tined to end. Cooling continued, and a new, feature 
was to be added to the system of nature. With the 
deepening of the seas and the withdrawal of water 
from the atmosphere, the volume of cloud became less 
dense. As this work progressed, a time finally came 
when the vapor-mantled earth became light in the 
dawning of a morning. The sun had been shining 
in all preceding eras of world-history, but the sun- 
light had just penetrated the mantle of cloud. That 
morning was dim and weird in the light of those feeble 
rays, but it ushered in the first day in all the history 
of the earth. Comparative geology teaches us the 
succession of day and night began on a first literal 
day. Genesis records: “And darkness was upon the 
face of the deep. And God said, Let there be light, 
and there was light; and the evening and the morn- 
ing was the first day.” 

The Second Day. During many millenniums after 
this beginning of the succession of day and night, 
the days were dim, the fogs were dense, and the rains 
were incessant. Meantime the seas were becoming 
deeper and were spreading over the earth. At last 
the waters covered all the desolate shores, and the 
world was covered by a universal ocean. Ages passed, 
and at last a morning came when the fogs were lifted 
from the expanse of waters and an eye might have 

28 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


seen the circle of the horizon. What would this world 
be without a visible horizon! How important was 
the addition of this new feature to the world-scheme! 
Science declares there was a day when for the first 
time the horizon became visible, and in this Genesis 
fully agrees, for we read, “Let there be a firmament 
in the midst of the waters; and God divided the 
waters which were under the firmament from the 
waters which were above the firmament; and there 
was evening and there was morning, a second day.” 

The Third Day. Millenniums rolled away during 
which the atmosphere was washed of many impurities 
by the incessant rains, and the ocean steadily freed 
its waters by precipitation. A new and stupendous 
work now began. It was the upheaval of portions 
of the ocean bed. The constant cooling and shrinking 
of the earth caused the crumpling and upheaval of 
the rocky crust in places. Then came a day which 
was made notable by the rising of the land above the 
surface of the ocean. The geologist points to that 
day. But notice how perfectly geology agrees with 
Genesis in this. In the “beginning” mentioned by 
Genesis, dry land and ocean were in existence. Then 
followed an era in which the land disappeared be- 
neath the waters. A time now comes when the land 
is lifted above the surface of the sea. Genesis 
declares, “God said, Let the waters under heaven 
be gathered unto one place, and let the dry land ap- 
pear.” Genesis is not unscientific in this. A new 
feature was thus added to the growing scheme of 
nature. 

29 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


The land which arose from the sea at that time 
was no longer the naked rock which was submerged 
ages before, but was covered with detritus and a 
slimy ooze precipitated by the sea—a primitive soil. 
The era of inhabitableness had now come. Geology 
plainly teaches us there was a time when no terres- 
trial vegetation existed. It also points to a day when 
that form of life actually began to spread over the 
land. Genesis also points to that time when it says, 
“Let the earth put forth grass, the herb yielding seed, 
and the fruit tree bearing fruit after its kind wherein 
is the seed thereof.” Thus in the evolutions of natural 
forces a new feature was added to the system of 
nature. It has been objected that Genesis intro- 
duces the highest and lowest forms of vegetation at 
the same time, while science teaches us the lowest 
forms appeared first. Evolution comes to the rescue 
of Moses, however, for science teaches all terrestrial 
plant life was comprehended in the types sown in 
primeval days. This also is the teaching of Genesis. 

The Fourth Day. Progress was the rule of the 
world. Several new features had been added to the 
system of nature, but the end was not yet. Another 
feature was to be added; and after the lapse of ages, 
a morning came when the great mantle of cloud which 
had so completely veiled the skies since the beginning 
of the planet era of the world was broken and parted 
after a night of storm. The majestic sun then arose 
to look for the first time upon the verdant fields and 
to flood the hills with glory. The visible appearing 


30 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


of the sun and the quickening power of the direct 
sunbeam alone could replenish the world with the 
highest forms of vegetable and animal life. And so 
the world-wide storm of cloud and rain at last was 
broken, the days of gloom were over, and the glorious 
sunlit day was followed by the serene, starlit night. 
Genesis and science are in strict accord in teaching 
that the visible appearing of the sun, moon, and stars 
occurred at a definite time, a literal day, which marked 
the beginning of definite signs, seasons, and years. 
Genesis records: “Let there be lights in the firmament 
of the heaven to divide the day from the night, and 
let them be for signs and for seasons, for days and 
years. And there was evening and there was morn- 
ing, a fourth day.” 

The Fifth Day. Time now moved on in triumphal 
procession. The land and sea and the firmament had 
now become suited to higher forms of life. Genesis 
tells us of the literal day on which marine types of 
life appeared, or at least the types that appeared 
when birds were introduced into the scheme of na- 
ture. It says, “Let the waters swarm with swarms of 
living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth in 
the open firmament of heaven.” Birds thus made 
their appearance at the time when certain types of 
marine life were introduced into the world. Paleon- 
tology points to the era of Mesozoic saurian reptiles— 
an era when the sea swarmed with monsters—as the 
time when bird life first appeared. Paleontology 
seems to confirm the statement of Genesis in this. 


31 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


So again new features were added to the growing 
cosmic scheme on a definite, literal day,—‘‘And there 
was evening and there was morning, a fifth day.” 
Science teaches us that vegetable life was intro- 
duced into the world in groups of comprehensive 
types. This is said to be true of animal life as well. 
The characteristics of several modern orders were 
blended in a single individual of earliest times. Sci- 
entists to-day trace two types of modern birds—run- 
ning and flying—back along two distinct lines of 
evolution to saurian reptiles of the Mesozoic period. 
The ancestral comprehensive types had their origin 
in the divine agency, while their development and 
specialization were brought about by the processes of 
evolution. Genesis agrees with the evolutionist in 
tracing birds and aquatic animals to a marine lineage! 
The Sixth Day. The grand march of progress 
was not yet at an end. Another notable feature was 
to be added to the cosmic scheme. It was the ap- 
pearance of terrestrial animal life. Science has 
brought up from the rocks of the later geological 
ages the remains of terrestrial animal life, long ex- 
tinct. It has also discovered human remains and 
works of art which belonged to an era long preceding 
the time in which the Adam of Genesis made his 
appearance in the world. It seems, moreover, that 
the words of Genesis place the appearance of ter- 
restrial animal life and Adam on the same day— 
whereas it is certain animal life appeared long ages 
before Adam. Let us remember, however, the dis- 
crepancy in time is unimportant, for Moses is speak- 
32 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


ing to the Hebrews in an allegory. Genesis refers, 
for religious reasons, to the rise of Adam, a higher 
type of man, and incidentally to the terrestrial animal 
life contemporary with Adam. 

The crowning feature to be added to the growing 
system of nature was the appearing of Adam, a man 
of higher type than the pre-Adamites, for to Adam 
was given dominion and divine inspiration and divine 
revelation and the promise of a Redeemer. The alle- 
gory of Moses reached its splendid climax with the 
rise of Adam and the beginning of a human career 
to be made glorious also by invention and discovery, 
the spread of knowledge and righteousness, and the 
mental, moral, and physical emancipation of mankind. 
This crowning event in the evolutions of physical 
nature occurred on a literal day—‘“And there was 
evening and there was morning, the sixth day.” 


The Seventh Day. The literal day following the ~ 


rise or calling of Adam and Eve from among the 
pre-Adamites as heralds of an advancing civilization, 
was hallowed by the Lord as a Sabbath. The Seven 
Days were thus employed in his allegory by Moses 
as the symbol of a week, to teach the Hebrews the 
observance of a Sabbath. 

Moses opened his allegory of world-building at 
the time in world history when but four features of 
nature were in existence—land, ocean, atmosphere, 
and darkness. He then traces the passing of that 
system of nature and the introduction of a new system 
which comprises many new features, such as the suc- 
cession of day and night, the visible horizon, the 

: 33 


i 


THE.CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


kingdom of plants, visibility of the heavenly boilies, 
the introduction of marine and bird life, the appear 
ing of animals, and the rise of Adam and the dawning 
of civilization. The days of Genesis do not represent 
long periods of time, but are widely separated days 
upon which new features were added to the growing 
system of nature. 


Tur ALLEGORY OF CREATION. 


The allegory is a legitimate figure of speech in 
the Scriptures, like the parable, simile, and metaphor. 
Saint Paul, in writing to the Galatians, spoke in 
allegory (Gal. 4: 22-26), “Which things are an alle- 
gory.” 

Moses in this allegory traces the lower forms of 
animal life and terrestrial vegetation to a terrestrial 
lineage, for he declares they were “brought forth” by 
the “earth.” He traces birds and marine animals to 
a marine lineage, for he declares they were “brought 
forth” by the “waters.” This certainly is evolution. 

The striking fact remains, however, that he does 
not trace Adam back to either a terrestrial or to a 
marine lineage. He does not say Adam was “brought 
forth” either by the “earth” or by the “waters.” 
Moses is silent here. Here he points to the divine 
agency. But when Moses points to the divine agency, 
that is not saying Adam was produced by a new and 
distinct act of creation. Moses also points to the 
divine agency when animal, plant, and fowl were 
“brought forth” by the “earth” or by the “waters.” 
If Moses had said Adam was born of the cave-men, 

34 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


the Hebrews would not have revered Adam. If he 
had told them Adam was descended from the ape, 
they would have worshiped the ape, according to the 
custom of Egyptian idolatry, with which they were 
familiar. | 

Moses would teach them to worship God, and he 
would also stir their national spirit. This could be 
done best by telling them the story of creation as 
an allegory, according to the custom of Oriental 
thought. In this way he gave to Adam, their ancestor, 
a peculiar and commanding dignity. Many nations 
point in a similar way to some noble trait or achieve- 
ment of their founders. Moses thus carried their 
thought to God, whom they ought to worship. We 
must remember the Oriental to this day lives and 
moves and has his being in an atmosphere of allegory 
and poetic symbolism. 

The national spirit of the Hebrew slaves was 
aroused by this allegory of Moses. They were taught 
the proud lesson of the Fatherhood of God and their 
origin in the divine agency. They were shown that 
Adam and Eve, their ancestors, were the first among 
. mankind to receive divine inspiration and divine reve- 
lation. They were first to receive the promise of a 
Redeemer. Moreover, they were taught by allegory 
the dependence and the nobility of woman, together 
with her equality with man in his dominion over 
nature. 

Genesis does not teach, therefore, that Adam was 
the product of a new and distinct act of creation; 
it does not teach that Adam was evolved from a 

35 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


brute ancestry; nor uoes it teach that he was born 
of a savage human ancestry. While Moses was cer- 
tainly the pioneer evolutionist, he adroitly evaded the 
question of Adam’s natural ancestry, and for the best 
of reasons fixed their attention upon God, whom they 
should worship and obey. We venture the opinion 
that Adam was born of human parents, and that he 
and his descendants did not differ from the pre 
Adamites so much in physical characters or intel- 
lectual powers, but rather in mental and moral il- 
‘Jumination due to divine inspiration and revelation. 

It is not incumbent upon any one to believe Adam 
was born or ascended from a low or degenerate type 
of humanity, for the man of Cromagnon and some 
others of the oldest members of the human family 
are known to have been of the greatest mental and 
physical capacities. The great difference between 
civilized and uncivilized men of modern times is a 
difference in ideas and in mental and moral illumina- 
tion. Savage tribes become civilized under the in- 
struction of the civilized. Likewise did Adam, under 
the power of divine inspiration and revelation, become 
the founder of a higher type of mankind and the 
herald of an advancing civilization. 


(2) Apam anp Prenisroric Man. 


The rationalist scoffs at the Mosaic cosmogony as 
unscientific. However, its profound truth certainly 
attests its claim to inspiration. 

The antiquity of mankind is a most fascinating 
problem. It has been given new interest by recent 

36 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


discoveries of human relics in Europe of very great 
age, and by the fact that the latest conclusions of 
scientists find the human race much older than the 
Adam of Genesis. 

It is a well-established fact that early representa- 
tives of the human family inhabited Europe in times 
contemporary with the mammoth and other great 
mammals, long since extinct. Obermaier presents some 
very interesting conclusions of his investigations into 
the presence of man in central Europe during Quater- 
nary times (Smithsonian Report, 1906). He de- 
scribes the discovery of numerous archeological and 
skeletal remains in many places in Switzerland, 
Austria-Hungary, and Germany. The glacial period 
in Europe is divided by Obermaier in the following 
chronological order: 

1. Glacial epoch, (a) Interglacial period. 

2. Glacial epoch, (b) Interglacial period. 

3. Glacial epoch, (c) Interglacial period. 

Warm era, Chelleen culture. 
Cool era, Achelleen culture. 
4. Glacial epoch, Mousterian culture. 
Post-glacial time, (a) Solutrean culture. 
(b) Magdalenian culture. 

There were two great centers of glaciation in 
Europe, one in the Alps, and the other in the north ; 
and from these centers vast ice sheets spread out 
over the greater part of Europe during four different 
periods, consituting four glacial epochs. North Amer- 
ica seems to have passed through similar epochs of 
glaciation. 


37 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Obermaier says: “The Quaternary archeological 
deposits of Austria-Hungary are divided into two 
large groups, namely, those which occur in the loess 
which covers a great portion of the surface of the 
empire, and those which are found in caves. ‘Those 
which are found in caves are divided into two classes, 
one, the more ancient, belonging to the lower layers 
of the cavern deposits and characterized by only the 
lower-paleolithic implements of a very primitive type 
—the other, distinguished by the presence of flint 
implements of definite and much varied forms, as well 
as by bone implements, and belonging to the more 
recent Magdalenian culture. 

“The industry represented in the articles found 
in the loess is typically Solutrean and belongs chrono- 
logically between the two groups found in the caves. 
This fact has been established by stratigraphic ob- 
servations, particularly in western Europe, and is 
supported by the clear separation between the objects 
of the cave and those found in the loess, even where 
such deposits existed in immediate vicinity.” 

Obermaier assigns the relics of man which were 
found in the cavern Sipka, in Moravia, consisting of 
3,000 implements, together with a piece of human 
lower jaw, to the Third Interglacial period. They 
were scattered among the bones of eleven arctic- 
alpine species of animals. He declares there is no 
doubt this lower jaw belongs to the layer in which 
it was found, and is the most ancient human bone 
from the Quaternary era in Austria. He also assigns 
the human relies found at Taubach, Germany, to the 

38 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


Third Interglacial period. The base of the deposit 
found in this locality was formed of sand and gravel, 
which were partly glacial in their origin. Above this 
was a layer of tufas, which contained in its lower 
part the remains of animals contemporary with Ele- 
phas antiquus and Rhinoceros Mercki—warm climate 
fauna. Here, at a depth of sixteen feet, the tooth of 
a child was found, together with implements, broken 
and burned bones, and fireplaces. The upper layers 
of the deposit showed fauna of a cold climate, the 
mammoth and hairy rhinoceros—but no traces of man. 

The caves of Freudenthal and Kesserloch, in 
Switzerland, have yielded many interesting relics of 
ancient men. It has been demonstrated, however, that 
man did not appear in that country until long after 
the maximum stage of the Fourth Glacial epoch. 
They are Solutrean or Magdalenian in character. Six 
other deposits found in Austria-Hungary, and one in 
Germany, are unquestionably Quaternary, and are 
assigned to the Fourth Glacial epoch, or to Post- 
Glacial times. However, as to man in America there 
appears to be no unequivocal evidence that man ap- 
peared in North America during the Glacial epochs. 
He seems to have made his appearance at the close 
of the last Glacial epoch, during the period of glacier 
decline and flooded streams. European man is vastly 
older than American man, but the geologist is unable 
to fix the date of his appearance in the world, even 
approximately, owing to the utter lack of reliable 
data. The year of the men of Sipka and Taubach, 
who lived between the Third and Fourth Glacial 

39 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


epochs, is buried in the darkness and mystery of 
antiquity. 

The human remains found in Sussex, England, 
in 1911, belonged without question to early Pleistocene 
times, and near enough to Pliocene times to render 
it certain that the immediate ancestry of that ancient 
individual lived during the pliocene era. The weapons 
and implements of this man of the Pleistocene era 
are known as the Chelleen type of culture. 

The scientific investigators have, therefore, as- 
signed to man a far greater antiquity than is assigned 
to Adam in the Book of Genesis. But, let us remem- 
ber, the antiquity and the social status and the origin 
of the pre-Adamite are not problems of Genesis. 
Genesis takes up the story of human life with the 
advent of Adam into the world. 

This conclusion concerning the antiquity of the 
human race, which places the first man in the world 
tens of thousands of years before Adam, should not 
appall the lover of the Bible, however. No, do not 
be alarmed! Remember, facts must stand, though 
former interpretations of the Bible have to be aban- 
doned. It seems certain, in fact, that the true in- 
terpretation of Genesis on this subject has been over- 
looked. It should be remembered also that the ques- 
tion of human antiquity, with many other questions 
arising in the Scriptures, lies wholly outside the circle 
of divine inspiration within the Scriptures as Christ 
and Saint Paul have defined it. 

The genealogy of man goes back in Genesis to 
Adam—about 7,500 years, according to the Septu- 

40 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


agint. But it does not carry us back to the man of 
Sipka, or Taubach, or Sussex, of the Third Inter- 
glacial epoch. It seems evident, therefore, that the 
genealogy of man found in the Bible does not, and 
probably was not designed to, carry us back to the 
days of the first man of the human family. 

But why should Moses give the Hebrews a gene- 
alogy back only to Adam, and not onward into the 
past of the first man of the earth? The Hebrews 
looked back to Abraham as the founder of the Hebrew 
nation, and to Shem as the founder of the branch of 
the human family from which Abraham descended, 
and back to Adam as their earliest known ancestor. 
But more than this, Moses pointed to Adam as the 
_ founder of a higher type of mankind. 

A new era had been reached in the history of 
earthly life. Mankind had lived among the creatures 
of the earth, but not as a conqueror, and not as exer- 
cising dominion, and not as rising superior to the law 
of natural selection. A higher type of human life 
was now to appear. The pre-Adamite bears evidence 
of having been endowed with a complex nature like 
men of modern times, though deficient in culture and 
mental and moral illumination. The men of Sipka 
and Taubach and Sussex and Heidelburg were like 
the members of many wild tribes of modern times, 
no doubt, and had similar social and religious customs, 
and used similar implements and weapons. But the 
higher qualities of a moral and religious nature espe- 
cially had not reached high development. The pre- 
Adamite was not capable of the highest moral or re- 

41 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


ligious culture without the aid of divine revelation 
and the stimulus of divine inspiration. 

The pre-Adamites had received no revelation from 
God. They had not received the impulse of divine 
inspiration. They worshiped, if at all, according to 
conscience. While they lived in righteousness or sin, 
they had no revelation of the character of sin or its 
penalties from God, nor had they any revelation of 
the merit of virtue. They were like the wild tribes 
of the present day in this respect. They had not 
been illumined by divine inspiration or revelation. 
They had no revelation of a Redeemer. Civilization 
bad not yet dawned. 

But now a time comes when man shall enter a 
higher plane of life. This new era in human life 
and history was to be characterized by the appear- 
ance of a new man of higher type. “God said, Let 
us make man in our own image, after our likeness: 
and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, 
and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, 
and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing 
that creepeth upon the earth.” The new man was, 
therefore, “made'in the image of God.” Like God, 
man was to exercise dominion, he was to enter the 
region of higher intelligence, he was to make grander 
achievements, he was to have knowledge and illumina- 
tion that were divine, and he was to have a deeper 
religious experience. The new man was to occupy 
a station above the supremacy of natural selection. 
He was to be a conqueror, and exercise dominion and 
control over the forces of nature, and the resources 

A2 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


of the world. The new man was to enter a realm 
where he would have communion with God. It was 
a station in which he would be imbued with God’s 
thoughts, and participate in God’s plans, and recipro- 
cate His love. 

Why did Moses trace human lineage back only 
to Adam? Because Adam was the founder of the 
higher type of man. He was the first member of 
the human race to be moved by divine inspiration. 
He was the first to receive divine revelation. Adam 
was the first man of the race to receive the promise 
of a Redeemer. Moses, therefore, very properly 
traced the Hebrew lineage back only to Adam. He 
was their progenitor. God established in Adam a line- 
age through which descended Shem, Abraham, the 
Hebrew nation, and Jesus Christ—a lineage through 
which divine inspiration and revelation should be 
given the entire human family, and have their con- 
summation in Christ and His gospel. Moses, there- 
fore, carried their thought back, not to man of the 
Third Interglacial period, in whom the Hebrews had 
no interest, but to Adam, their noble ancestor, and to 
God, whom they ought to worship. 


(3) Tue Origin or Earruty Lire. 


Herbert Spencer defined life as being “the defi- 
nite combination of heterogeneous changes, both 
simultaneous and successive, in correspondence with 
external co-existences and sequences, the degree of 
life varying with the degree of correspondence.” 
Life was also regarded by him as the product of 

43 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


‘ 


evolution. Moreover, he defined evolution as “an 
integration of matter and concomitant dissipation of 
motion, during which the matter passes from an in- 
definite, incoherent homogeneity to a definite, coherent 
heterogeneity, and during which the retained motion 
undergoes a parallel transformation.” Just so. And 
thus the scientist and philosopher juggles with words, 
and ‘“‘darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge.” 
He declared that “it is impossible by the laws of 
thought to conceive of matter becoming non-existent, 
or to conceive it coming into existence.” Spencer, 
therefore, holds to the view that matter is eternal 
and had no beginning of existence. We may admit 
that matter is as eternal as God. We may agree with 
Spencer as to “the existence of an unknowable Power 
(unknowable in essence) of knowable likenesses and 
differences among the manifestations of that Power— 
as ego and non-ego, or mind and matter.” But we 
prefer the Biblical explanation of the origin of earthly 
life rather than the explanation offered by Spencer. 
He seems to exclude God from creation, but sees in 
evolution the origin of earthly life. “The absolute 
beginning of organic life on the globe I distinctly 
deny,” said Spencer. ‘The affirmation of universal 
evolution is itself the negation of an absolute com- 
mencement of anything. Construed in terms of evo- 
lution, every kind of being is conceived as a product 
of modifications, wrought by insensible gradations on 
a pre-existing kind of being.” So the materials of 
all organic life were so small, and consisted of so 
many parts, and were so widely diffused, and came 
44: 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


together so slowly and after so many modifications— 
that there was no beginning at all! Here is philos- 
ophy gone to seed! 

But organic life, as such, had a beginning in this 
world. We like the words of Genesis, which declare, 
“God said, Let the waters swarm with swarms of 
living creatures—and, Let the earth bring forth liv- 
ing creatures after their kind.” These words seem 
to explain the beginning of organic life more scien- 
tifically than do the words, “The joining of stuff into 
a lump, then the equal unjoining and sending out of 
movement from it, the making stuff pass from a no- 
sort-of unstickiness into some-sort-of holding-together- 
ness, while the movement not sent out undergoes a 
like change of no-sort-of keeping-togetherness into 
some-sort-of sticking.’ If we recognize and admit 
the eternity of matter, we do not thereby deny God’s 
supremacy over nature. It is the wisdom and power 
and purpose of God, not of mere matter, that we find 
exhibited in nature. 

Argyll, in “Unity of Nature,” declares: “Let us 
not forget that life, as we know it here below, is the 
antecedent or the cause of organization, and not its 
product; and that the peculiar combinations of matter 
which are the homes or abodes of life are prepared 
and shaped under the control and guidance of that 
mysterious power which we know as vitality; and 
that no discovery of science has ever been able to 
reduce it to a lower level, or to identify it with any 
purely material force.”’ 

“We never see the phenomena of life dissociated 

45 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


from organization. Yet the profoundest physiolo- 
gists have come to the conclusion that organization 
is not the cause of life, but, on the contrary, life is 
the cause of organization—life being something, a 
force of some kind, by whatever name we may call it, 
which precedes organization and fashions it and builds 
it up. This was the conclusion come to by the great 
anatomist Hunter, and it is the conclusion endorsed 
in our own day by such men as Dr. Carpenter and 
Professor Huxley.” 

“Science has cast no light on the ultimate nature 
of life. But whatever it be, it has evidently funda- 
mental elements which are the same throughout the 
whole circle of the organic world.” 

Life is, therefore, something apart from the cell. 
It existed before the cell. Huxley, in “Lay Sermons,” 
declared: “The chemist regards chemical change in 
a body as the effect of the action of something ex- 
ternal to the body changed. A chemical compound, 
once formed, would persist forever if no alteration 
took place in the surrounding conditions. 

“But to the student of life the aspect of nature is 
reversed. Here incessant and, so far as we know, 
spontaneous change is the rule, while rest is the ex- 
ception. Living things have no inertia, and tend to 
no equilibrium.” 

Matter, therefore, is inert. It is incapable of 
effecting change in itself. But the living thing has 
no inertia, and is capable of originating activity. 
Hunter, Carpenter, Argyll, and Huxley unite, there- 
fore, in the opinion that if Spencer’s idea that organic 

46 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


life had no beginning because it has come down to 
us after evolutions that have been eternal in their 
operations, be accepted, still, life is something apart 
from matter and something apart from the cell. Life 
it was which effected the organization of the cell in 
all the eternal succession of cells. 

This is the teaching of Scripture. Life effected 
the organization of the first organic cells in the his- 
tory of this world—a link in the eternal chain of 
organic life in the universe—and that life we call 
God. Moreover, if organic life exists on the planet 
Mars, or on any of the distant worlds, such organic 
life constitutes other links in the eternal succession 
of organic life in the universe. 

Genesis recognizes three agencies in the history 
of earthly life: first of all is God, the ultimate Cause; 
next to be mentioned is environment, which was previ- 
ously prepared; and last to be recognized is the vital 
element, which was endowed with the power of repro- 
duction. The biologist raises no voice in objection 
to the second and third factors in the cosmic scheme, 
though efforts have been made to eliminate God from 
the problem. This has been attempted by declaring 
nature’s laws are capable of explaining their own 
existence, and that the chemical elements possess in 
themselves the promise and potency of all earthly 
life and its activities. 

The materialistic biologist, however, has found his 
position untenable. Tyndall and Pasteur and Liebig 
have completely shattered the hypothesis of spon- 
taneous generation, and Tyndall has declared, ““The 


AT 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


true man of science will frankly admit his inability 
to point to any experimental proof that life can be 
developed, save from demonstrable antecedent life.” 

Professor Dastre, in a fine article on “The Life 
of Matter,” in the Smithsonian Report of 1906, says, 
“Never up to this time has there been formed a 
single particle of living matter, except by the inter- 
vention of a pre-existing organism.” Biology has been 
utterly unable to discover any secondary cause which 
is adequate to produce even the humblest form of life 
from inorganic, lifeless matter. 

Did earthly life have a beginning? Geology pro- 
vides an answer. Louis Agassiz declared: “The un- 
stratified rocks are the oldest, and they contain no 
traces of the remains of either plants or animals. 
They certainly furnish evidence of a time when the 
world was not inhabited, at least by any forms of 
life known to science. A study of geology compels 
us to admit every form of life known to that science 
had a beginning.” It is the opinion of the scientific 
world that the incandescent sun is without one living 
atom within its stupendous fiery bulk. It is also the 
opinion of the scientific world that the moon—arid, 
atmosphereless, arctic in temperature—is lifeless. It 
is also the conclusion of the scientific world that the 
earth, which has passed from the incandescent stage 
onward through some of the lunar stages, passed like- 
wise through a long period of lifelessness. Earthly 
life had a beginning. 

Whence came this earthly life? Charles Darwin, 
in his “Origin of Species,’ expresses the opinion, “I 

48 


COSMOGONY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


believe that animals are descended from at most only 
four or five progenitors, and plants from an equal or 
lesser number.” He further declares, “There is 
grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers 
having been originally breathed by the Creator into 
a few forms, or in one; and that while this planet 
has gone circling on according to the fixed law of 
gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms, 
most beautiful and most wonderful, have been and 
are being evolved.” 

On this much mooted question Professor J. S. Mill 
completes the testimony of science concerning earthly 
life when he says, “If the universe had a beginning, 
by the very conditions of the case, its beginning was 
supernatural; for the laws of nature can not account 
for their own origin.” Science thus frankly admits 
the origin of earthly life was supernatural; and in 
this, science fully agrees with the teaching of Genesis. 


III. 


PROPHECY FULFILLED ATTESTS DIVINE 
INSPIRATION. 


Tue divine inspiration of the Bible and its claim to 
acceptance by the civilized world are attested by the 
fulfillment of Biblical prophecies. The human mind, 
unaided, has no power of prescience. Our predictions 
are always such as are based upon well-known facts 
or principles, and are most likely to occur. But many 
of the prophecies of the Bible were concerning events 
in themselves most unlikely to occur. ‘They were 
often uttered when nothing in the past or present 
conditions made such an event probable. In many 
instances, prophecies foretold events centuries before 
their fulfillment. 
| The Bible contains some startling prophecies, and 
there have been some striking fulfillments. The first 
recorded prediction was that in which God foretold 
the bruising of the serpent’s head by the seed of the 
woman. This referred to the triumph of truth over 
error by the power of the Redeemer. Four thousand 
years elapsed before He came. Why this long delay? 
That prophecy might be employed as a proof of His 
divinity and the divine origin of Christianity. Dur- 
ing this long period God would have ample time to 
found a nation to become the custodians of divine 


50 


PROPHECY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


revelations and evangelists of mankind. Prophets 
could then foretell events of a personal, local, or 
national character, and with ages before their ful- 
fillment. Inspired writers could record important 
events and principles belonging to the divine system 
of redemption in literary form as a means of instruc- 
tion. In this way religious truth has been revealed 
and preserved, and given evidence of genuineness. 

The Bible contains interesting prophecies concern- 
ing Christ, and also Ishmael, Babylon, Egypt, and 
Jerusalem. We are familiar with their fulfillment. 
But notice some predictions that are unmistakably 
accomplished before our own eyes. Moses in his part- 
ing address (1450 B. C.) to the Hebrews made a 
remarkable prophecy: “The Lord shall scatter thee 
among all people from one end of the earth unto the 
other, and among those nations thou shalt find no 
ease, neither shall the sole of thy foot have rest. 
And thou shalt become an astonishment, and a prov- 
erb, and a by-word among all nations whither the 
Lord shall lead thee away. And the generation to 
come, and the foreigner that shall come from a far 
Jand shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, 
and the sicknesses wherewith the Lord hath made it 
sick; and that the whole land thereof is brimstone, 
and salt, and a burning, that it is not sown, nor 
beareth—even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath 
the Lord done thus unto this land? Then man shall 
say, “Because they forsook the covenant of the Lord.’ ” 

Moses spoke these words just before they entered 
Canaan in triumph. This prediction, made so long 

51 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


ago, has been conspicuously fulfilled, and is fulfilled 
to-day. Literature contains no greater tragedy than 
that found in Jewish history for the past nineteen 
hundred years. The prophets describe the complete- 
ness and continuance of their dispersion, their perse- 
cutions and sufferings, their helplessness and spiritual 
blindness and avaricious tendencies and indestructi- 
bility as a distinct people. They have been perse- 
cuted in all European countries, by the Moslems, and 
Church of Rome. They have outlived their ancient 
enemies. The existence of the Jewish people to-day— 
a people without a prince or country, yet distinct and 
non-assimilating—is a perpetual miracle. This trag- 
edy of Jewish history which we see enacted before 
our eyes, and which was predicted by the ancient 
prophets, is a living demonstration of the divine 
inspiration of those men of God. 

Prophecy has another interesting fulfillment in 
these times. About twenty-five centuries ago Daniel 
the prophet recorded, “Many shall run to and fro, 
and knowledge shall be increased.” Also another 
prediction, “Many shall be purified and made white 
and tried.” Two great movements of reform were 
predicted here. One was a great intellectual awaken- 
ing, the other a great moral quickening. Moreover, 
the date was fixed by the prophet when these things 
should be fulfilled. He said, “And from the time the 
daily sacrifice shall be taken away, and the abomina- 
tion that maketh desolate set up, shall be a thousand 
two hundred and ninety days.’ A day is regarded 
here as the symbol of a year. Consider well the next 

52 


PROPHECY ATTESTS INSPIRATION. 


statement, “Blessed is he that waiteth and cometh 
to the thousand three hundred five and thirty days.” 
A mighty mental awakening should begin in the world 
1,290 years after the ending of the daily sacrifice, 
135 A. D., and 1,335 years from that date of the 
ending of the Jewish polity the world would witness 
a great religious awakening. Twelve hundred and 
ninety years after the dispersion of the Jews, about 
1425 A. D., the Dark Ages came to an end and the 
Renaissance began. Thirteen hundred and thirty-five 
years after the dispersion of the Jews, about 1400 
A. D., protests against religious corruption in the 
mother Church began to be heard. They culminated 
in 1517, when Martin Luther nailed his theses to 
the church door—and the Reformation was launched. 
Thus the Renaissance and the Reformation, the two 
great turning points in modern history, when the era 
of science and discovery and invention and when 
Protestantism was born, were clearly foretold in an- 
cient prophecy. 


53 


| 


IV. 


INSPIRATION ATTESTED BY BIBLE’S 
TRIUMPHS. 


Tux Bible lives after nineteen hundred years of per- 
secution and criticism. Why? Because its moral and 
religious tenets are founded in truth. It demands 
holiness of heart and righteousness of conduct. It 
recognizes sin, and provides a remedy which is ade- 
quate. It proclaims the reward of virtue and the 
punishment of vice. It deals candidly with history, 
and presents the facts, whether honorable or dishon- 
orable, in the records of Biblical characters. The 
Bible offers us most consistent and satisfactory ex- 
planations of the origin of the world and of mankind, 
the rule of human duty, and the destiny of man that 
are to be found in the literature of any nation. Its 
transcendent morals are what we would expect to find 
in a volume given by divine inspiration. 

The ethical and religious teachings of the Bible 
work out beautifully in human experience. The Bible 
appeals to the religious element in human nature, and 
satisfies it with its sublime conception of God and 
of the dignity of the human soul; it satisfies it with 
the offer of pardon and regeneration. It appeals 
to the reason and satisfies it with its truthful refer- 
ences to nature and history, and its lofty motive in 
presenting the plan of redemption. It appeals to 

54 


BIBLE-TRIUMPHS ATTEST INSPIRATION. 


the ethical nature and satisfies it by giving man the 
true rule of duty, by promoting personal righteous- 
ness, public security, and the ideal home life. It 
appeals to the physical nature and satisfies it, for 
it teaches temperance as well as diligence. It appeals 
to the emotional and esthetic elements in human na- 
ture and satisfies them, for Christianity is the religion 
of life and of song and of beauty, expressed in per- 
sonal conduct and worship and in Christian art. The 
Bible is supreme among the sacred books of the na- 
tions to-day because it demands holiness of heart and 
life, and punishes sin, both of which conscience and 
reason approve. 

Heathendom has its sacred books. The sacred 
books of the Hindoos and Chinese and of the God- 
worshiping Moslems are entitled to credit for much 
that is praiseworthy among them in moral and re- 
ligious life. But they are also responsible for certain 
crying evils. Under the teaching of Confucius the 
four hundred millions of China have remained sta- 
tionary for two thousand years. Under the teaching 
of Buddha the three hundred millions of India have 
groped in superstition and the curse of caste for 
twenty centuries. Under the teaching of Mohammed 
the two hundred millions of Moslems have warred 
against Christendom in a cruel and bootless warfare 
for twelve hundred years. Under the teaching of 
Plato and Socrates the Grecian and Roman Empires 
fell into decay and passed away. Under the teaching 
of Papal Rome, which obscures Christ and closes the 
Bible to its people, the Spanish-American States have 


55 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


groveled in vice and superstition for four hundred 
years. While under the teaching of Protestantism, 
with its open Bible, the sinning and suffering race is 
reaching better moral and material conditions. The 
Bible has triumphed in the passing of old idolatries, 
war, intemperance, polygamy, and the spread of lib- 
erty and altruism. So its inspiration is attested by 
its living triumphs. 

The Bible triumphs over its enemies. Twenty- 
five years ago Col. Robert Ingersoll declared the 
Bible was an exploded Book. He said its sales were 
falling off rapidly, and that within ten years it would 
not be read any more. Since that day, however, six 
Bible houses have been established, and the sale of 
Bibles has more than quadrupled. Since 1904 the 
British and Foreign Bible Society has published two 
hundred and twenty-two million copies of the Scrip- 
tures. They have all been sold. The American Bible 
Society has issued over eighty-seven million copies 
of the Bible. It is at present the best seller, ten to 
one, of any book in the markets of the world. It is 
because the world thinks. It is because the world 
prays. It is because the world finds in the Bible 
something that meets the needs of the soul. 

The Bible is published in five hundred and twenty- 
six languages and dialects. It reaches nine-tenths 
of the human race. The rationalist may well con- 
sider the words of Professor Huxley in his great lec- 
ture on “Science and Education: ‘I have always 
been strongly in favor of secular education—education 
without theology; but I must confess I have been 

56 


BIBLE-TRIUMPHS ATTEST INSPIRATION. 


seriously perplexed to know by what practical meas- 
ures the religious feeling, which is the essential basis 
of conduct, is to be kept up in the present chaotic 
state of opinion on these matters without the use of 
the Bible. 

“Take the Bible as a whole, make the severest 
deductions which fair criticism can dictate for short- 
comings and positive errors, and there still remains 
in this old literature a vast residuum of moral beauty 
and grandeur. And then, consider the great historical 
fact that for three centuries this Book has been woven 
into the life of all that is best and noblest in English 
history; that it has become the national epic of 
Britain; that it is written in the noblest and purest 
English, and abounds in exquisite beauties of mere 
literary form; and finally, it forbids the veriest hind 
to be ignorant of other countries and civilizations of 
a great past. 

“By the study of what other book could children 
be so much humanized, and made to feel each figure 
in that great, historical procession fills, like them- 
selves, but a momentary space in the interval between 
two eternities, and earns the curses or blessings of 
all time, according to their efforts to do good and hate 
evil. I am in favor of reading the Bible, with such 
grammatical, historical, and geographical explanations 
as may be needful; and with the rigid exclusion of 
any further theological teaching than that contained 
in the Bible itself.” This was the tribute Professor 
Huxley paid to the Scriptures when defending their 
use in the public schools. He perceived a Divine 

57 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Presence and authority in that Book which awakens 
the recognition of a Supreme Being back of duty and 
conscience, enforcing their demands. He saw in the 
Bible a force and power prompting young and old 
to the best life, humanizing children, and keeping 
alive among men the religious feeling which is the 
basis of the purest conduct and noblest character. 

The Bible has but one mission and purpose in the 
world. It is to uplift mankind. It is to turn the 
sinner from the error of his ways; and to change 
the environment of men from superstition, ignorance, 
and vice to the Christian environment of godliness, 
knowledge, and virtue. 

Has the Bible done this? Only the ignorant or 
prejudiced will deny it. The Bible has penetrated 
savage lands and given to benighted minds moral and 
religious truth to awaken them. It has enriched their 
lives by giving them a broader field of thought. It 
has transformed barbarous and cannibal tribes into 
sane and upright and industrious people. The Bible 
has aroused men to greater charity and humanity. 
It has moved men to found hospitals for the afflicted, 
to endow homes for the orphan and the aged, and to 
establish retreats for the unfortunate. It has been 
the inspiring force stirring great reforms in society. 
It is the evangel of liberty and education and human 
redemption. 

Has the Bible done you any good? It has made 
it possible for you to be born of Christian parents— 
the highest type of parents, and in a Christian home— 
the highest type of home, and amid Christian influ- 

58 


BIBLE-TRIUMPHS ATTEST INSPIRATION. 


ences—the best environment the world knows. It has 
placed about you restraints and safeguards to develop 
in you the best character, the highest usefulness, and 
the noblest citizenship. The Bible has made it pos- 
sible for you to obtain a liberal education in schools 
where only the best mental training was afforded, and 
by teachers of the highest mental and moral equip- 
ment and character. 

The Bible has united a vast body of humanity 
into a common brotherhood whose avowed purpose 
is to keep the moral law, to recognize the brotherhood 
of man, and to transform all society into Christian 
society. 

The Bible has given to mankind a gospel which 
has been set to music, and the hymnology of Chris- 
tianity comprises the noblest thought, the sweetest 
harmonies, and the profoundest moving power ever 
produced by tongue or pen. And so the Word of 
God is leading the millions into the life of holiness 
of heart, uprightness of conduct, fruitfulness of en- 
deavor, and perennial happiness. It places upon 
modern civilization the crown of love and peace. 


59 


V. 
IS JESUS GOD? 


1. Profane history testifies Jesus was not a myth. 

2. Testimony of God in prophecy witnesses 
Christ’s divinity. 

8. Fulfillment of prophecy a proof of Christ’s 
divinity. 

4. Testimony of John the Baptist. 
Jesus declared His divinity. 
His enemies understood Him to claim divinity. 
His friends asserted His divinity. 
He was crucified for claiming divinity. 

9. His divinity attested by miracles. 

10. Miracles facts of sacred and profane history. 

11. Christ’s divinity attested by His religious 
teachings. 

12. His divinity attested by His ethical teachings. 

13. His divinity proven by Christian experience. 


oe ae aa 


(1) Was tHe Curist or THE New TesTaMENT A 
CoMPposITE oF OrIENTAL Myrus, or Was He THE 
Divine Son or Gop. 


Was Jesus a real character of history? The 
coming of Jesus into the world was not unlooked for. 
It is a fact of history that not only in Palestine, but 
throughout the entire East, was entertained the ex- 
pectation of the coming of a universal Prince and Re- 

60 


IS JESUS GOD? 


former (Suetonius, Vesp. 4; Tacitus, Hist. V., 13). 
The Hebrew prophets and Roman historians agreed 
in announcing the coming of a great King. Christ 
was that King. Tacitus, in language which proves 
his hostility to Christianity, related that Nero “in- 
flicted the severest punishments upon a class of people 
held in abhorrence for their crimes, called Christians. 
The Founder of that name was Christ, who suffered 
death in the reign of Tiberius, under the procurator, 
Pontius Pilate. This destructive superstition thus 
checked for a while, broke out again, and spread not 
only over Judea, where the evil originated, but 
through Rome also.” Pliny was one of the most 
elegant writers of his time. He said, in a letter to 
the Emperor of Rome about thirty years after the 
death of Christ, speaking of the persecutions he was 
inflicting on Christians in his province: ‘They de- 
clared the whole of their guilt or error was that they 
were accustomed to meet on a stated day before it was 
light, and to sing in concert a hymn of praise to Christ 
as God, and to bind themselves by a sacred obliga- 
tion, not for the perpetration of any wickedness, but 
that they would not commit any theft, robbery, or 
adultery, nor violate their words, or refuse when 
called upon to restore anything committed to their 
trust. After this they were accustomed to separate 
and then to reassemble to eat in common a harmless 
meal.” These passages prove by the best possible 
historical evidences the great facts of the existence, 
time, and death of Christ; also the sufferings, the 
purity, the religious worship, the belief in Christ’s 
61 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Deity, and the sacramental meal of the ancient 
Church. Profane history thus teaches us that Jesus 
Christ was not a composite of Oriental myths, but 
was a real Person and, moreover, that He was be- 
lieved divine by the earliest Church. 


(2) Tue Testimony or Gop 1n PRropuHeEcy. 


Is Jesus God? If He is, it is not a fact made 
known by inductive science. If He is, that fact must 
be made known to mankind by the testimony of God 
Himself, and the testimony of Jesus. God has testi- 
fied in prophecy. Jesus has testified by His words 
and His works. 

God has testified of Christ in prophecy. “No 
prophecy ever came by the will of man; but men 
spake from God, being moved by the Holy Spirit.” 
This is the Biblical announcement of divine inspira- 
tion. Prophecy by divine inspiration is God’s testi- 
mony. The fulfillment of such prophecy is the verifi- 
cation of God’s testimony. Christ was Deified by 
the ancient prophets in many of their prophecies. 
Those prophecies were fulfilled in Christ. Hence, 
God testified by those prophecies that Jesus is God. 

It has been asserted by rationalists that Christ 
was a composite of Oriental myths, a Man simply 
Deified by His deluded disciples. We shall find, how- 
ever, that Christ was Deified hundreds of years before 
His advent by the Hebrew prophets. The Christ, 
and Christianity which He founded, were the con- 
summation of Old Testament Scriptures. 

The Old Testament contains several startling 

62 


IS JESUS GOD? 


prophecies concerning Christ. His coming was one 
of the earliest promises of God to Adam and Eve, 
the founders of a higher type of mankind, and the 
first to receive divine inspiration and revelation and 
the promise of a Redeemer. God’s words, addressed 
to the serpent (a symbol of Satan), “I will put enmity 
between thee and the woman, and between thy seed 
and her seed; he shall bruise thy head and thou shalt 
bruise his heel,” were the prediction of a coming vic- 
torious Redeemer of the fallen race. 

Gen. 22: 18—“And in thy seed shall all the na- 
tions of the earth be blessed.” This promise of God 
to Abraham is fulfilled in Christ. 

Gen. 49: 10—‘The scepter shall not depart from 
Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until 
Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the 
people be.” This prophecy was fulfilled 1,872 years 
after it was made, when Jesus, the only legal claimant 
to the scepter of Judah, died without issue. The 
Romans already held dominion over the Jews, and 
there remained after Jesus’ death no legal heir, in 
a temporal sense, to the throne of David. The tem- 
poral dynasty of David was ended. However, Christ, 
who sits on the throne of David in a spiritual sense, 
is gathering the people of all nations unto Him in 
loving obedience. 

Isaiah 7: 14—“Therefore the Lord Himself shall 
give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and 
bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.” AI- 
lusion is here made to the miraculous birth of Jesus, 
as recognized by Matthew and Luke. The miraculous 

63 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


conception is a Biblical fact founded upon the in- 
spired testimony of Isaiah, Matthew, and Luke. 

Daniel 9: 25—‘‘Know therefore and understand, 
that from the going forth of the commandment to 
restore and to build Jerusalem, unto the Messiah the 
Prince, shall be seven weeks, and threescore and two 
weeks.” From the issuing of that command to the 
coming of Messiah would be 483 years. Messiah 
came or was manifested to Israel at His baptism. 
After that He was to “confirm the covenant with 
many” for “one week,’ of seven years. The covenant 
was confirmed by His ministry and the call of the 
Gentiles. This one week of seven years completed 
the seventy prophetic weeks, or 490 years, from the 
issuing of the commandment. In “the midst” of that 
last week, however, as Daniel says, in the middle year 
of the seven, being the four hundred and eighty-sev- 
enth year from the commandment, Messiah “caused 
the oblation and sacrifices to cease,’ when He was 
“cut off’ in death on the cross. The prophecy of 
Daniel was literally fulfilled. 

Micah 5:2—‘“But thou, Bethlehem Ephratah, 
though thou be little among the thousands of Judah, 
yet out of thee shall He come forth unto me that is 
to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth have been 
of old, from everlasting.” The world well knows it 
as a fact of history that Christ was born in Bethlehem. 

Isaiah 9:6—‘For unto us a Child is born, unto 
us a Son is given: and the government shall be upon 
His shoulder: and His name shall be called Wonder- 
ful, Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting 

64 


IS JESUS GOD? 


Father, the Prince of Peace.” The Christian world 
points to this prophecy as an unmistakable allusion 
to Jesus Christ, in which His essential Deity is 
recognized and the character of His Kingdom. 

Isaiah 35: 5—“Then the eyes of the blind shall be 
opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. 
Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the 
tongue of the dumb shall sing.” The prophets saw 
the Messiah as a worker of miracles. 

Isaiah 1: 6—“I gave My back to the smiters, and 
My cheek to them that plucked off the hair: I hid not 
My face from shame and spitting.” This allusion to 
the suffering of Jesus was fulfilled, as the Gospel of 
Matthew declares. (Matt. 26: 27.) 

Psalm 22:18—“They part My garments among 
them, and cast lots upon My vesture.” 

Psalm 69: 21—“They gave Me also gall for meat; 
and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.” 

Psalm 109: 25—“I became also a reproach unto 
them: when they looked upon Me they shook their 
heads.” 

These prophecies had their fulfillment at the 
crucifixion of Jesus. 

Psalm 22: 16—‘“For dogs have compassed Me: the 
assembly of the wicked have inclosed Me: they pierced 
My hands and feet.’”’ The hands and feet of Jesus 
were pierced on Calvary. 

Psalm 16:9, 10—“My flesh also shall rest in hope. 
For Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell; neither wilt 
Thou suffer Thine Holy One to see corruption.” The 
resurrection of Jesus from the dead is here foretold. 

. 65 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Psalm 68: 18—‘Thou hast ascended on high, Thou 
hast led captivity captive: Thou hast received gifts 
for men; yea, for the rebellious also, that the Lord 
God might dwell among them.” The ascension of the 
risen Messiah was foreseen by the prophet. 

The Messianic prophecies reached their climax in 
Isaiah. Seven hundred years before its fulfillment 
that prophet, under the power of divine inspiration, 
described the details of the passion of Christ. The 
fifty-second and fifty-third chapters of Isaiah must 
stand forever as irrefutable witnesses of the Deity of 
Jesus and the efficiency of His atonement for sin. 


(3) Propuecy aNp FULFILLMENT. 


Isaiah 52:13—‘‘Behold, My servant shall deal 
wisely, he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall 
be very high.” 

My servant. Matt. 20: 27—“Whosoever would be 
first among you shall be your servant: even as the 
Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to 
minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.” 

Shall deal wisély (prosper). John 12:19—‘‘The 
Pharisees therefore said among themselves, Behold 
how ye prevail nothing; lo, the world is gone after 
Him.” | 

Shall be exalted and lifted up. Matt. 12: 41, 42— 
“For they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and 
behold a greater than Jonah is here. The queen of 
the south . . . came from the ends of the earth 
to hear the wisdom of Solomon: and behold, a greater 
than Solomon is here.” 

66 


IS JESUS GOD? 


Heb. 3: 5—“For He hath been counted worthy of 
more glory than Moses, by so much as he that built 
the house hath more honor than the house.” 

Mark 2: 28—“The Son of man is Lord even of the 
Sabbath.” ; 

John 10: 30—“I and My Father are One.” 

Isaiah 52: 14—“Like as many were astonished at 
Thee (His visage was so marred, more than any man, 
and His form more than the sons of men). 

Isaiah 52: 15—“So shall He startle many nations; 
kings shall shut their mouths at Him, for that which 
had not been told them shall they see; and that which 
they had not heard shall they understand.” 

His visage was so marred. Matt. 27:28-30— 
“And they stripped Him, and put on Him a scarlet 
robe. And they platted a crown of thorns and put 
it on His head—and they spat upon Him, and took 
the reed and smote Him on the head.” 

Shall He startle many nations. 1 Cor. 1:23— 
“But we preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a 
stumbling block, and unto Gentiles foolishness.” 

Kings shall shut their mouths at Him. Luke 23: 
13-15—“And Pilate called together the chief priests 
and the rulers of the people, and said unto them, Ye 
brought unto me this Man as one that perverteth the 
people; and behold, I, having examined Him before 
you, found no fault in this Man, no, nor yet Herod: 
for he sent Him back unto us.” 

That which had not been told them shall they see 
: and understand. Mark 15:10—‘‘For He 
perceived that for envy the chief priests had delivered 
Him up.” 67 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Isaiah 53: 1—‘‘Who hath believed our message? 
and to whom hath the arm of Jehovah been re- 
vealed?” 

Who hath believed our message? John 12: 37— 
“But though He had done so many signs before them, 
yet believed they not on Him.” 

Isaiah 53: 2—‘‘For He grew up before them as a 
tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He 
hath no form nor comeliness. 

A root out of a dry ground. John 1: 46—“And 
Nathanael said unto him, Can any good thing come 
out of Nazareth?” 

No form nor comeliness. Phil. 2: 7—‘‘But emp- 
tied Himself, taking the form of a servant.” 

Isaiah 53:3—‘‘He was despised and rejected of 
men; a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; 
as one from whom men hide their face He was de- 
spised; and we esteemed Him not.” — 

Despised and rejected. Luke 23: 18—‘“But they 
cried out all together, Away with this Man, and re- 
lease unto us Barabbas.”’ 

A Man of sorrows. John 11: 35—‘‘Jesus wept.” 

Hide their face. Mark 14: 50—‘‘And they all 
left Him and fled.” Mark 14: 72—“‘And Peter called 
to mind the word, how that Jesus had said unto him, 
Before the cock crow twice, thou shalt deny Me thrice. 
And when he thought thereon he wept.” 

We esteemed Him not. Luke 23: 36—“And the 
soldiers also mocked Him, coming to Him and offer- 
ing Him vinegar.” 

Isaiah 53: 4—‘“Surely He hath borne our griefs 

68 


IS JESUS GOD? 


and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem Him 
stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” 

Borne our griefs. 1 Tim. 2: 5—“For there is one 
God, one Mediator also between God and men, Him- 
self man, Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a Ransom 
for all.” 

Stricken, smitten of God. John 18: 14—“Now 
Caiaphas was he that gave counsel to the J ews, that 
it was expedient that one man should die for the 
people.” 

Isaiah 53:5—“But He was wounded for our 
transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the 
chastisement of our peace was upon Him: and with 
His stripes we are healed.” 

Wounded for our transgressions. Rom. 5:6— 
“For while we were yet weak in due season Christ 
died for the ungodly.” 

Chastisement of our peace was upon Him. Rom. 
5:8, 9—“But God commandeth His own love toward 
us, in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for 
us. Much more then, being justified by His blood, 
shall we be saved from the wrath of God through 
Him.” 

With His stripes we are healed. 1 Peter 2: 24— 
“Who His Ownself bare our sins in His body on the 
tree, that we, having died unto sins, might live unto 
righteousness, by whose stripes we were healed.” 

Isaiah 53: 6—“‘All we like sheep have gone astray; 
we have turned every one to his own way; and the 
Lord hath laid on Him the iniquity of us all.” 

Like sheep have gone astray. 1 Peter 2:25— 

69 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


“For we were going astray like sheep; but now are 
returned unto the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls.” 

On Him the iniquity of us all. 1 John 2:2— 
“And He is the Propitiation for our sins, and not for 
ours only, but also for the whole world.” 

Isaiah 53:7—“‘He was oppressed, yet when He 
was afflicted He opened not His mouth; as a lamb 
that is led to the slaughter and as a sheep that before 
its shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth.” 

He opened not His mouth. Matt. 27: 12-14-- 
“And when He was accused by the chief priests and 
elders, He answered nothing. Then said Pilate unto 
Him, Hearest Thou not how many things they witness 
against Thee? And He gave him no answer.” 

Isaiah 53:8—‘By oppression and judgment He 
was taken away; and as for His generation, who 
among them considered that He was cut off out of 
the land of the living for the transgression of My 
people, to whom the stroke was due?”’ 

By oppression and judgment He was taken away. 
Matt. 26:14—‘“Judas Iscariot went unto the chief 
priests and said, What are ye willing to give me, and 
I will deliver Him unto you? And they weighed him 
out thirty pieces of silver.” 

Matt. 26:59—‘‘Now the chief priests and the 
whole council sought false witness against Jesus, that 
they might put Him to death.” 

1 Cor. 15:3—“‘For I delivered unto you first of 
all that which I also received, how that Christ died 
for our sins according to the Scriptures.” 

Isaiah 53: 9—“‘And they made His grave with the 

70 


IS JESUS GOD? 


wicked, and with a rich man in His death, although 
He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in 
His mouth.” 

Made His grave with the wicked. Matt. 27: 38— 
“Then there were crucified with Him two robbers, 
one on the right hand and one on the left.” 

And with a rich man—Matt. 27: 5'7-60—And 
when even was come there came a rich man of Ari- 
mathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus’ 
disciple: this man went to Pilate, and asked for the 
body of Jesus. . . . And Joseph took the body 
and wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in 
his own new tomb.” 

No violence—neither any deceit. John 8: 46— 
“Which of you convinceth Me of any sin?” 1 Peter 
2:22—“Who did not sin, neither was guile found in 
His mouth: who, when He was reviled, reviled not 
again; when He suffered, threatened not.” 

Isaiah 53: 10—“Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise 
Him; He hath put Him to grief; when thou shalt 
make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His 
seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of 
Jehovah shall prosper in His hands.” 

Pleased Jehovah to bruise Him. Rom. 3: 25— 
“Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation 
through faith in His blood, to declare His righteous- 
ness for the remission of sins that are past, through 
‘the forbearance of God.” 

His soul an offering for sin. Gal. 3: 13—“Christ 
hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being 
made a curse for us.” 

71 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Shall prosper in His hands. Acts 2: 41—‘Then 
they that received His word were baptized; and there 
were added unto them that day about three thousand 
souls.” 

Isaiah 53:11—‘He shall see the travail of His 
soul and shall be satisfied: by the knowledge of Him- 
self shall My righteous servant justify many: and He 
shall bear their iniquities.” 

Shall be satisfied. Rom. 8: 1—‘‘There is there- 
fore now no condemnation to them that are in Christ 
Jesus.” 

Justify many. 2 Cor. 5:17-——“If any man be in 
Christ he is a new creature.” 

He shall bear their iniquities. 2 Cor. 5: 18— 
“God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Him- 
self, not reckoning unto them their trespasses.” 

Isaiah 53:12—“‘Therefore will I divide Him a 
portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil 
with the strong; because He hath poured out His soul 
unto death; and was numbered with transgressors ; 
yet He bare the sin of many, and made intercession 
for the transgressors.” 

A portion with the great—divide the spoil with 
the strong. Phil. 2:9, 10—‘‘Wherefore God also 
highly exalted Him, and gave unto Him a name which 
is above every name; that in the name of Jesus every 
knee should bow of things in heaven and on earth— 
and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ 
is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” 

Was numbered with the transgressors. Matt. 27: 
44—‘And the robbers also that were crucified with 
Him cast upon Him the same reproach.” 


72 


IS JESUS GOD? 


Made intercession for the transgressors. Luke 
23: 34—“And Jesus said, Father, forgive them; they 
know not what they do.” 


(4) FurrinitMent or Propuecy a Proor or Curist’s 
Divinity. 


God has borne witness to Christ’s divinity by the 
word of many inspired prophets. These prophecies 
were fragmentary in most instances, but this is char- 
acteristic of Biblical prophecy. The prophecies were 
uttered by different persons, and in times and places 
widely separated. There could have been no con- 
spiracy among them. The prophecies thus brought 
together and fulfilled in Christ did not constitute a 
composite of Oriental myths, but a historical Divine 
Person, Jesus Christ. The prophecies thus fulfilled 
certify the divine inspiration of the prophets. They 
also certify the actual Deity to Jesus Christ. More- 
over, the prophecies of John the Baptist complete 
the testimony of God concerning the divinity of Jesus. 


(5) Tue Testimony or JoHNn THE Baptist. 


The Deity of Jesus was announced by John the 
Baptist. This prophet was himself the subject of 
inspired prophecy, as was also the message he de- 
livered. His utterances concerning Christ were in- 
spired, for we read, “The word of God came unto 
John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.” 

He declared Jesus to be the “Lamb of God, which 
taketh away the sin of the world.” 

73 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


He prophesied of Christ, “He shall baptize you 
with the Holy Spirit and with fire.” 

He also proclaimed Christ’s office of Divine Judge 
when he said, ““Whose fan is in His hand, and He will 
thoroughly purge His floor, and gather His wheat into 
the garner; but He will burn up the chaff with un- 
quenchable fire.” 

John did not mistake the true import of Old Testa- 
ment prophecies, but recognized in Christ a true God- 
man. 


(6) Jesus Decrarep His Divinity. 


Is Jesus God? If He is, He certainly would 
claim divinity. He did make that claim. There can 
be no mistake about this. What did Jesus mean when 
He said, “Before Abraham was, I am?” What im- 
port had His words when He said to the palsied man, 
“Man, thy sins are forgiven thee?’ What did He 
mean when He declared, “I and My Father are One?” 
Jesus claimed the dignity and prerogatives of the 
Eternal God. 


(7) Tue OPINION OF THE JEWS. 


The Jews understood Jesus to lay claim to actual 
Deity. When Jesus said, “I and My Father are One,” 
the Jews took up stones to stone Him. When He 
asked their reason for stoning Him, they replied, “For 
a good work we stone Thee not; but for blasphemy, 
and because that Thou, being a Man, makest Thyself 
God.” 

When Jesus said to His hearers, “Before Abra- 

74 


IS JESUS GOD? 


ham was, I am,” they also took up stones to hurl at 
Him. He was then understood by them to claim 
eternity, which belongs to God. 

When Jesus declared the sins of the palsied man 
forgiven, the scribes and Pharisees began to reason, 
saying, ‘““Who is this that speaketh blasphemies? Who 
can forgive sins but God alone?’ Blasphemy was a 
sin and crime the Jews would not excuse; hence when 
charged with it before the Sanhedrin, Jesus could 
not escape their vengeance. — 


(8) Curist’s Friznps Assertep His Divinity. 


While Jesus’ enemies understood Him to claim 
divinity as God, it is undeniable that His friends also 
so understood His teachings. The Deity of Jesus at 
once became the great central doctrine of the gospel 
they preached. 

Nathanael voiced his profound conviction of that 
great truth when he said, “Rabbi, Thou art the Son 
of God; Thou art the King of Israel.” 

Peter declared the same conviction when he said, 
“Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 

Martha expressed the same deep conviction, at the 
death of Lazarus, when she said, “I believe Thou art 
the Christ, the Son of God, who should come into the 
world.” 

The skepticism of Thomas was overcome when the 
risen Christ invited him to examine His hands and 
side. Thomas exclaimed, “My Lord, and my God.” 
The great truth dawned upon him, Jesus was Lord 
God. 

75 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


(9) Curist Cruciriep ror Crarmine Divinity. 


The Jews conspired against Christ, accused Him, 
and brought about His death by crucifixion as a blas- 
phemer because He claimed divinity. They said to 
Pilate, in His trial, “We have a law, and by our law 
He ought to die, because He made Himself the Son 
of God.” 

When the high priest questioned Jesus and urged 
Him to tell whether He were the Christ, the Son of 
God, He answered, “Thou hast said; nevertheless I 
say unto you, hereafter ye shall see the Son of man 
sitting on the right hand of power, and coming in 
the clouds of heaven.” Then the high priest rent 
his clothes, saying, “He hath spoken blasphemy.” 
And when the high priest asked the opinion of the 
Jews concerning Jesus, they all asserted, “He is guilty 
of death.” 


(10) Divrniry or Jesus ATTEsTED By His Mirac es. 


Is Jesus God? If so, His deeds will attest the 
fact. We would expect the career of a God-man to 
be something moré than commonplace. If Jesus had 
come not working miracles, the rationalist would on 
that ground deny His divinity. So would we. The 
events of the birth and infancy and career of Jesus 
are what we would expect of a real God-man. 

Would the career of a God-man in the world be 
like the career of the ordinary mortal? Would His 
life be commonplace? Must we then be astonished, 
and regard as unexpected, and be ready with denials, 


76 


IS JESUS GOD? 


when the God-man performs miracles? Certainly not. 
We would expect Him to exercise power over the 
forces of nature, and walk on the sea, and command 
the winds, and calm the tempest. We would expect 
Him to heal the sick, and open blind eyes, and unstop 
deaf ears, cleanse the lepers, and raise the dead. Yes, 
we would expect Him to forgive sins, and purify 
hearts, and restore ruined souls. No miracles, no 
God-man. 

The rationalist scoffs at miracles as impossible 
under the present system of nature. He is simply 
assuming to know just what is possible under the 
present system of nature. The intelligent world de- 
rides his conceit. It pities his incredulity. Every- 
body who has given the matter intelligent thought 
knows that a miracle is never without a cause. That 
cause is divine. Its operation may be new or un- 
known to us. But no man should deny a thing because 
it is incomprehensible to him. No man should deny 
a thing on the ground of what he does not know about 
it. This, however, is the position of the rationalist. 
No man is competent to declare a miracle is im- 
possible. Some recent achievements by scientists and 
inventors would have been deemed miracles in ancient 
days. We may yet discover the divine process of 
healing disease. 

The miraculous works of Jesus were fulfillments 
of distinct prophecies uttered hundreds of years be- 
fore Jesus’ birth. Prophecy and miracles here unite 
in certifying Christ’s divinity. 


77 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


(11) Curist’s Mrractes Facts or History. 


The claim that Christ performed miracles is not 
a mere invention of His disciples. His miracles are 
facts of New Testament history. They are con- 
firmed as historical events by profane history. 

Lucian, a Greek writer, the Voltaire of his day 
(53-117 A. D.), never called Christ an impostor, but 
a crucified sophist. He attributed His miracles to 
magic and jugglery. 

Celsus, who wrote about the time of Lucian, did 
not deny the miracles of Jesus, but, like Lucian, at- 
tributed them to magic. 

The miraculous works of Jesus, therefore, stand 
as events of history, both sacred and profane. 


(12) Divinity or Jesus Arrestep By His RELIGIOUS 
DoctTRINES. 


The sinlessness of Jesus is what we would expect 
of a God-man. 

He taught the doctrine of the redemption of sin- 
ners by His atonement for sin. The observance of 
exact justice in moral government would forbid the 
arbitrary discharge of the guilty from penalty. The 
mercy of God would suggest the pardon of the guilty. 
How could the guilty be pardoned while justice re- 
quired their punishment to preserve the majesty of 
the law? This may have been the question arising 
in all rational minds. God must, therefore, offer a 
sufficient warrant to all questioning minds for His 
offer of pardon to sinners doomed to the penalty of 
the law. Sin was a matter that lay between the Law- 


78 


IS JESUS GOD? 


maker and the lawbreaker. No angel or other dis- 
interested third party could intervene. A fine could 
not be paid by God to satisfy justice—as it would 
be no sacrifice. The guilty could not be arbitrarily 
pardoned. Therefore, if God would preserve the dig- 
nity of His broken law, and at the same time offer 
pardon to the guilty, God Himself must suffer in be- 
half of the sinner and so atone for his sin. God then 
would be justified in offering pardon to the sinner. 


(13) ONLy THe Surrerine Gop Can Aton. 


Human redemption rests upon the divinity of 
Christ. If God did not atone in the person of Christ, 
then every sinner must atone for his own sins. If 
Christ is not God, then we have no redemption. 


(14) Divinity Arrestep py Curist’s Eruics. 


The ethical teachings of Jesus are what we would 
expect of a God-man. They everywhere recommend 
themselves. He did not assail the great national 
evils of His day, but gave the world those moral prin- 
ciples and precepts, in the laws of love and the Golden 
Rule, which form the basis of the highest type of per- 
sonal character, of home life, of social intercourse, 
and national existence. Under the power of Christ’s 
teachings crying national evils are passing away— 
idolatry, slavery, polygamy, and intemperance; educa- 
tion is lifting all classes to higher planes of intelli- 
gence and usefulness; arbitration and peace are sup- 
planting war; and the human race is recognizing the 
brotherhood of man. 


79 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Jesus teaches holiness of heart and righteousness 
of conduct. He everywhere places a premium upon 
every gentle virtue, faith, hope, love, justice, tem- 
perance, prudence, and fortitude. He everywhere 
places a ban and stigma upon every sin and vice. 
He inculcates the heroic virtues, courage, strength, 
and patriotism, under the controlling power of love. 
The ethical teachings of Jesus are the germs of 
noblest personal character and of the highest type of 
citizenship. 


(15) Divinity ATTESTED BY CurisTIAN EXPERIENCE. 


Jesus taught the doctrines of repentance, and faith 
in God, and restitution, and obedience to the moral 
laws. Obedience to His teachings results in pardon 
and regeneration, peace, and a new life to the sinner. 
These results constitute Christian experience—some- 
thing the Christian world everywhere recognizes, but 
something the unregenerate know nothing about. “If 
any man willeth to do His will, he shall know of the 
doctrine.” 


80 


VA 
IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


Prayer and spiritual gifts. 

Prayer and the discipline of suffering. 
Prayer and natural government. 
Religious sphere of prayer. 


ee 


(1) Prayer aNnp SpirituaL Girts. 


The rationalist declares prayer is a failure. It 
is because he mistakes its true sphere and fails to 
comply with its proper conditions. 

Many crimes have been committed in the name of 
religion, and many errors have been committed in 
the use of prayer. The Biblical doctrine of prayer 
is greatly misunderstood even in this twentieth cen- 
tury; and the errors concerning its true sphere, as 
taught in many pulpits, are largely responsible for 
the faith-healing delusion which is sweeping over the 
Christian world at the present time. 

The theory of prayer which is prevalent to-day 
regards it as really a means of securing God’s miracu- 
lous interference in temporal and secular affairs for 
the attainment of results otherwise impossible. This 
is a most grievous error. It has its origin in the 
mistake of confounding the Biblical instructions for 
the use of miracle-working powers, called “spiritual 
gifts,’ with the instructions for the use of prayer 

P 81 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


proper. It is an unmistakable teaching of the Scrip- 
tures that the prophets possessed powers which were 
not possessed by ordinary individuals. It is also 
clearly taught their prophetic utterances and miracu- 
lous works were due to the possession of these peculiar 
powers by them. 

Soon after calling the disciples to the apostleship, 
Jesus endowed them with miraculous powers. This 
fact is clearly stated in Matt. 10:1, “And He called 
unto Him His twelve disciples, and gave them au- 
thority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to 
heal all manner of diseases and all manner of sick- 
ness.” These miraculous powers are called “spiritual 
gifts” by the Apostle Paul in 1 Cor. 12:1. 

The disciples had been called to an important mis- 
sion. ‘There was abundant reason for their endow- 
ment with spiritual gifts. Miracles were employed 
by the Savior as credentials attesting His claims to a 
divine office and divine character. They must also 
be employed by the apostles in establishing Chris- 
tianity in a heathen world. Ommnipotence was actually 
placed at their command. But did Christ give His 
disciples instruction in the use of their new powers? 
It would be absurd to suppose He did not. He gave 
them ample instruction. We find the formula for the 
use of spiritual gifts quite clearly defined in the New 
Testament and in Christ’s own words. It comprises 
six factors: (1) “Whatsoever ye shall ask.”" §(2) 
“In My name.” (3) “With fasting.” (4) “That 
they may believe Thou hast sent Me,” must be the 
sole motive. (5) “Believe that ye receive.” (6) 

82 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


“And ye shall have.” It will be observed this formula 
differs from the formula for prayer proper. 

The spiritual gifts in existence in the Church in 
apostolic days were of two classes. To one class, 
called the inferior class by Saint Paul, belonged the 
various powers requisite to performing signs, wonders, 
and deeds of might. While to the other class—the 
superior—belonged the gifts requisite to the great 
work of preaching and teaching. Paul speaks of these 
two classes of spiritual gifts in 1 Cor. 12. He says, 
“God hath set some in the Church, first apostles, 
secondly prophets, thirdly teachers, then miracles, 
then gifts of healing, helps, governments, divers kinds 
of tongues.” Then the apostle asks: “Are all proph- 
ets? Are all teachers? Are all workers of miracles? 
Have all gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? 
Do all interpret?” Why did Paul ask those ques- 
tions? It was because some Christians then sup- 
posed, as many do to-day, that God endows all Chris- 
tians with miraculous gifts and powers. Paul would 
save the Church from that dangerous error. In 
further discussion of this subject Paul plainly dis- 
tinguishes, in the thirteenth chapter, between the 
“grace of faith” and the “gift of faith.’ He ex- 
plicitly teaches that all Christians do possess the 
grace of faith, though all may not possess the gift 
of faith. 

Jesus twice sent the disciples out on missions of 
preaching. In the first instance, mentioned in Matt. 
10, He gave them “power” to perform miraculous 
works. He gave them instructions for the use of 

83 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


their new powers. He often chided them for not 
using them. We find several instances of this. When 
He stilled the tempest He said to them, “O ye of 
little faith, why are ye fearful?” They should have 
exercised the spiritual gifts He bestowed upon them. 
Here was an opportunity for them to test their powers. 
Another case is found in the instance of feeding the 
five thousand. Christ said to the disciples, “They 
need not depart; give ye them to eat.” But their 
faith wavered, and they answered, “We have here 
but five loaves and two fishes.” Jesus then said, 
“Bring them hither to Me.’ Another instance is 
found when Jesus appeared to the frightened dis- 
ciples walking on the sea. Peter sprang from the 
boat to walk to Jesus, but his faith failed and he 
began to sink. Jesus immediately rescued him, and 
chided him with the words, “O thou of little faith, 
wherefore didst thou doubt?” At another time the 
disciples forgot to take bread for their journey, so 
they “reasoned among themselves, saying, “We took 
no bread.’” Jesus at once chided them with the 
words, ‘“O ye of little faith, why reason ye among 
yourselves because ye have no bread? Do ye not 
perceive, neither remember the five loaves of the five 
thousand, and how many baskets ye took up? Neither 
the seven loaves of the four thousand, and how many 
baskets ye took up?” This was to show them that 
they possessed the miraculous power to supply the 
bread they lacked if they would only follow the di- 
vinely given formula. The disciples attempted to 
heal the epileptic, but failed. Jesus spoke with some 
84 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


vehemence when He said to them, “O faithless and 
perverse generation, how long shall I be with you? 
how long shall I bear with you?” Jesus then healed 
the afflicted child. The disciples inquired of their 
Master why they could not cure him, and received 
the reply, “Because of your little faith.’ Then Jesus 
gave them words of instruction and encouragement 
in the use of their “spiritual gifts,’ when He said, 
“If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall 
say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder 
place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be im- 
possible to you.” 

Just before His ascension into heaven Jesus gave 
the apostles their final commission. It is found in the 
sixteenth chapter of Saint Mark. They had already 
received miraculous powers from Him. He now ut- 
tered a prophecy concerning them and their imme- 
diate converts. ‘And these signs shall follow them 
that believe: in My name shall they cast out demons, 
they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take 
up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing it 
shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick 
and they shall recover.” This prophecy was literally 
fulfilled, as the Biblical record shows. Its fulfillment 
was recorded as a matter of history after the signs 
ceased. The signs certainly ceased, for if it were not 
for the Biblical record we would not know from the 
events of to-day that the maimed, blind, deaf, insane, 
the leper, and the dead had ever been restored visibly 
and immediately by miracle. The spiritual gifts for 
working signs, wonders, and deeds of might belonged 

85 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


to the apostolic era, and evidently disappeared with it. 
Christianity, once established, would win on its merits 
and would not need miracles as credentials attesting 
its divine origin and authority. 

Jesus gave His disciples instructions in the use 
of their miraculous powers. We find the apostles gave 
their converts instruction also concerning the signs 
which Jesus had predicted. The most striking ex- 
ample of apostolic advice on the subject is found in 
James 5:14-18. Saint James refers to the Prophet 
Elijah. He encourages them with the fact that as 
Elijah, a man of like passions with themselves—and 
who was endowed with heavenly gifts—could perform 
signs and wonders to confirm the divinity of his 
prophetic office, so they should be encouraged to claim 
the promise of miraculous signs, that Christianity be 
firmly and quickly established among the heathen. 


SPIRITUAL GIFTS REQUISITE. 


These instructions of Saint James applied to the 
immediate converts of the apostles, according to 
Christ’s words. ‘The formula given by the Lord for 
the use of spiritual gifts in miracle-working can be 
applied only by persons previously endowed with the 
spiritual gifts. If God has endowed any one in our 
own times with such spiritual gifts, he may follow 
the formula and perform the miracles, and even 


, 


“oreater works than these,” as Jesus promised. Do 
you possess such spiritual gifts? It is not a debatable 
question. If you possess them, your visible and im- 
mediate works of miracle will unmistakably prove the 


86 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


fact. Note this fact also, if those spiritual gifts be 
lacking, you may agonize and pray until doom’s-day 
and utterly fail to perform a miracle. Death came 
to the camp-meeting of the “Come-outers” at Wood- 
burn, Oregon, and swept several children into eternity. 
They perished in spite of the prayer and agonizing 
and consecration and faith of those devout Christians 
—and why? Not because they did not ask according 
to the New Testament formula for miracle-working 
gifts, but because they totally lacked the gifts pos- 
sessed by the prophets and apostles. 

The prevalent opinion in the Church to-day, that 
all things are possible to the Christian by prayer if 
he only has enough faith, is thought to be supported 
by the many examples of miraculous answers to 
prayer recorded in the Scriptures. A critical ex- 
amination of these cases, however, proves every such 
miracle has really occurred in connection with some 
individual who had been endowed with certain spir- 
itual gifts. There is not an exception to be found in 
the Scriptures. Such were the petitions of the patri- 
archs and prophets, and of persons associated with 
them. Those events no doubt occupied an important 
place in the scheme of divine revelation. In some 
cases they fulfilled the promise of God to the founder 
of Israel; in other instances they attested the divine 
mission of God’s chosen servants. Such were the 
prayers of Jacob, Hagar, Hezekiah, Hannah, Moses, 
David, and others. Those wonders belonged in every 
case to times characterized by visions and dreams 
from God, the visitation of angels, prophetic utter- 


87 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


ances, and works of visible and immediate miracle— 
times which have no parallel in our own era. Such 
answers to prayer can not be cited as proving “all 
things” are possible to the Christian through prayer. 
The miraculous results were all wrought through the 
agency and office of some person endowed with 
prophetic or spiritual gifts. But can not God per- 
form miracles in response to prayer apart from spir- 
itual gifts? He certainly can; but the miracles re- 
corded in Scripture do not warrant us in expecting 
Him to do so. Such miracles, if ever wrought, are 
extra-Biblical! 

Spiritual gifts and miracles wrought through their 
agency have their proper place in the plan of salva- 
tion. Prayer also has its proper place and sphere. 
The formula for the use of miracle-working gifts must 
not be confounded, however, with the formula for 
prayer proper. The subject of spiritual gifts seems 
to have been overlooked completely in the many dis- 
cussions of the vexed problem of prayer and miracles. 
Let it be remembered, therefore, that miracles in Bib- 
lical times were not performed apart from some ap- 
propriate spiritual gift, bestowed for the purpose by 
the Holy Spirit, and the errors of faith-healing will in 
great measure disappear. Let the Christian discrim- 
inate between the formula for the use of spiritual gifts 
in miracle-working and the formula for acceptable 
prayer, and the whole subject will be shorn of its 
difficulties. 


88 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


SIN AND SUFFERING. 


The first mistake of the faith-healer is failure to 
perceive that some “spiritual gift’ is first requisite 
before miracles can be performed. The second error 
consists of mistaking the formula given by Christ 
for miracle-working, for the Bible instructions on 
prayer proper. The third error consists of sup- 
posing the grand mission of Christ and of the Church 
to-day is to heal the sick. 

This last error rests upon several unfounded no- 
tions. It is supposed that all human suffering is 
caused by the sin of the sufferer or his parents. Is 
all suffering caused by the sin of the sufferer? If 
so, then all suffering must be a penalty. But if it is 
a penalty, it must be deserved in every case by the 
sufferer. We know, however, that innocent babes 
often suffer. It can not be a penalty in such cases. 
As a penalty, suffering must always follow only in- 
tentional wrong-doing. But unintentional mistakes 
often cause great suffering. As a penalty, suffering 
can be justly inflicted only when the guilty recog- 
nizes his guilt. But the innocent often suffer without 
any sense of condemnation for wrong done. As a 
penalty, suffering can be inflicted only on the guilty; 
and it must cease the instant pardon is granted. But 
we know pain often continues even after pardon is 
granted for sin. There is, then, a difference between 
suffering as a penalty and suffering as a simple conse- 
quence of the human constitution. Most of our suf- 
fering has no reference at all to retributive justice. 


89 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Suffering has a legitimate place in nature. It awakens 
the sense of self-preservation and the love of life. 
Without it life would become extinct. 

God permitted the devil to afflict Job. It was not 
because Job had sinned, but to prove to the devil and 
all other observers the power of God’s sustaining 
grace in affliction. 


SUFFERING NOT THE WORK OF THE DEVIL. 


Scripture says the Son of God was manifested to 
destroy the works of the devil. Faith-healers sup- 
pose suffering is the work of the arch-slanderer, hence 
Christ came to abolish suffering. It follows, of course, 
if this be true, that it is the mission of the Church 
to abolish pain by miracle. This is an error. The 
mission of Christ directly concerned sin, and suffer- 
ing, the penalty of sin; but all suffering is not re- 
-tributive. Scripture traces sin and both natural and 
retributive suffering to an event in Eden. Analyze 
that event. In it we find the slanders of the slan- 
derer—devil means slanderer. We find man deceived 
by those slanders and led to disobedience. The sin- 
ner is doomed to spiritual death. A Savior is prom- 
ised. However, with the promise of a Savior, God 
pronounced the laws of labor, disappointment, pain, 
and physical death upon mankind. What, then, was 
“the work of the devil?’ It was slander. He slan- 
dered God, the intentions of God toward man, and 
the law of God. Christ came to refute those slanders. 
Sinners can be redeemed from the power of the slan- 


90 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


derer only when his slanders against God have been 
refuted. God must be vindicated before the victim 
of the deception will love Him. Christ, in His sym- 
pathy and doctrine and suffering, has vindicated God. 
The “works of the devil” are, therefore, actually de- 
stroyed. 

The suffering which afflicts human bodies is not 
the work of the devil. It occurs rather in conse- 
quence of the divine laws of labor, disappointment, 
pain, and physical death. These laws have been 
enacted by the Almighty for the discipline of a race 
of sinners. It was not the purpose of Christ to dis- 
turb these laws. Jesus said, “I am not come to de- 
stroy the law or the prophets, but to fulfill.” 


HOLINESS AND SUFFERING COMPATIBLE. 


The faith-healer commits another mistake. He 
supposes all suffering will cease in the event of a 
holy life. When God promised mankind a Savior, 
however, He also at the same time enacted the laws 
of labor, disappointment, physical pain, and physical 
death. Man may attain holiness, but it must be 
attained under the discipline of suffering. Holy men 
in all ages have endured suffering. The hardships 
of Elijah and of Paul were truly pathetic. The 
gentle virtues were brought to maturity in the hu- 
manity of Jesus “through suffering.” Perfection of 
the Christian graces in us is, therefore, to be attained 
in the same way. 


91 


| 


| 
| 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


THE PURPOSE OF MIRACLES. 


Christ relieved suffering by miracle, hence the 
faith-healer thinks it was His chief mission among 
men. But did Christ heal the sick, being moved only 
by sympathy for the sufferer? If so, why did He 
confine Himself to Palestine—did not the whole world 
lie in anguish? Was the abolishment of suffering in- 
cluded in the promise of a Savior? Why then delay 
His coming 4,000 years, only to depart after three 
short years of active work? 

If the gospel was really intended to abolish all 
suffering among mankind, it has proven a stupendous 
failure, even among faith-healers. They become sick; 
they suffer; and they die, just like other people, and 
all in spite of their belief, their theories, and their 
prayers. What, then, was the purpose of miracles? 
In Old Testament times it was to prove the divinity 
of Jehovah, the divine authority of His law, and the 
divine mission of His prophets. The miracles of 
Moses, Joshua, and Elijah prove this (Num. 16: 28). 
Miracles had the same purpose in New Testament 
times. Why did Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead? 
Was it purely an act of sympathy? Not at all. But 
for the purpose, as Jesus said, “That these may know 
Thou hast sent Me.’ Miracles served as proof of 
the divine personality and office and authority of 
Jesus Christ. They were afterwards employed by 
the apostles for the same purpose, in establishing 
Christianity in a heathen world, “the Lord confirming 
the word with signs following.” 


92 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


Paul doubtless understood the purpose of miracles. 
In his letter to Timothy he advised him to “use a 
little wine [not as a beverage, but as medicine] for 
his stomach’s sake and for his infirmities.” Paul pre- 
scribed medicine. Why did he not prescribe a mir- 
acle? It was because miracle was designed, not for 
selfish or personal ends, but for attesting divinity 
only. Paul was even accompanied by Luke, the “be- 
loved physician.” But the faith-healer rejects medi- 
cine and trusts in miracle for selfish and personal 
ends. 


FAITH-HEALERS FAIL. 


The faith-healer claims to perform miracles to- 
day. He may do so if he has been endowed with the 
“spiritual gifts’ of the prophets and apostles. But 
it is a fact, the faith-healer displays no superiority 
over the heathen charm-doctor, or the magnetizer, or 
mind-curist. All his wonders have been equaled by 
performers who made no claim to divine aid at all. 
It is undeniable also, the faith-healers utterly fail 
to accomplish the works of the prophets and apostles 
as they accomplished them. It is claimed by them, 
however, “the power to do such miracles results from 
growth—and we are growing.’ But this is not the 
Scriptural method. The disciples did not “grow into” 
the power of miracle-working. Christ endowed them 
with that power one day, and they went forth heal- 
ing the sick and casting out demons! 

Such miracles as bringing fire down from heaven, 
causing drouth, and rain, and earthquake; such won- 

93 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


ders as restoring withered limbs and curing all kinds 
of diseases and infirmities instantly and visibly are 
utterly unknown to-day. Why? Not because prayer 
is a failure. Not because men are less holy. Not 
because God has lost power or interest in mankind. 
But because Christianity has become established in 
the world; and because it is designed to win its way 
on the merit of its truths; and because the “spiritual 
gifts” of apostolic days for miracle-working are with-_ 
held from men. If any one has the “gifts” of Moses 
or of Peter, he can surely do their works. Here is a 
Scriptural test—‘‘If they shall drink any deadly thing, 
it shall not hurt them.” Let the faith-healer try it. 

The failure of physicians to cure their patients 
is often quoted to confuse thought on this subject, 
and to relieve the faith-healer from contempt; but 
the enlightened world understands why medicine often 
fails. But no physical condition ever stood in the 
way of men endowed with “spiritual gifts” when they 
followed the divine instructions. They even raised 
the dead. Alexander Dowie posed as a prophet. He 
claimed supernatural powers. But why did he fail to 
save his daughter from death by fire? He claimed 
to be Elijah. Did not Elijah have power over fire? 
Elijah of old was tested by fire, and triumphed— 
Dowie was tested by fire. It was the supreme test 
of his life—but he failed miserably. Why did he 
fail? Simply because he totally lacked the “spiritual 
gifts” of the Prophet Elijah. The camp-meeting of 
the ‘“Come-outers” was visited by a blind woman. 
They advertised to heal and restore all who would 

94 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


come. But she was compelled to go away to her 
home, blind. The agonizing and consecration and 
pleading and holiness of those Christians did not open 
her eyes. They prayed according to the New Testa- 
ment formula for “spiritual gifts,’ but they lacked 
those “gifts.” Hence they failed. But imagine 
Elijah or Paul or Peter sending the poor woman home 
in everlasting darkness! 

The faith-healer claims more for himself than the 
Bible warrants. This error is due to the fact that 
he overlooks his lack of the “spiritual gifts” of apos- 
tolic times. It is due also to confounding the formula 
for the use of those gifts with the formula for prayer 
proper. These errors and the preposterous claims of 
the faith-healer occasion scoffing at the Scriptures, and 
are a great obstacle to the triumph of Christianity. 
Faith-healing is widespread in its hold upon popular 
belief, and all owing to the general acceptance of 
Scripture as of divine authority. It will have its day, 
but reaction will set in when the failure of the faith- 
healer is recognized and many devotees will land in 
infidelity. 


(2) Prayer anp THE DiscrpLine or SUFFERING. 


In the discussion of this phase of the subject we 
shall find it is not the province of prayer to avert or 
minimize the suffering which comes to us under the 
laws of nature. God has enacted certain laws to 
which fallen man is subject. They have been enacted 
for purposes of moral government. Human disap- 
pointment, sorrow, pain, and death overtake us in 

95 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


consequence of these laws. We will notice these 
divine laws. 

In the day of God’s judicial treatment of the sin 
of man, God decreed, ‘“‘In the sweat of thy face shalt 
thou eat bread.” In this decree, labor was made the 
price of success in every earthly pursuit. The price 
to some seems high, but labor has many valuable 
lessons for man. It teaches him the lesson of human 
dependence, and also the lesson of self-reliance. 
Without labor the mind must remain undeveloped in 
its powers, the body must remain weak and unfitted 
for the struggles and competitions of life, and the 
health and happiness must be very greatly impaired. 
The sinner has always been a burden-bearer, subject 
to this law. Prayer is not designed to interfere with 
it or to annul its operativeness. Christ did not come 
into the world calling men away from the problems 
and tasks of daily labor, but from the burdens of a 
sin-cursed life. He promised to the weary soul rest 
from its spiritual burdens. Experience plainly 
teaches that the universal law is this, Sink or swim— 
work or famish. 'The Creator expects us to reach 
the higher planes of secular knowledge and achieve- 
ment not by miracle or by prayer, but by work. The 
sphere of prayer in no way encroaches upon the 
sphere of labor, but by prayer the drudgery of daily 
life may be given that dignity and sanctity which 
perfects the soul in the gentle virtues of patience and 
humility. 

God also enacted the law of sorrow. He said, 
“In sorrow shalt thou eat of it—the fruit of the 

96 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


-ground—all the days of thy life.” Sorrow is a 
needful factor in the discipline of a sinful race. 
God does not expect sinners to find soul-rest in any 
worldly pursuit. If soul-rest could be found in the 
business or the pleasure of this world, man would 
never seek after holiness of heart. He would be 
content with a base spiritual condition. God craves 
the best things for His erring and wayward children. 
Sorrow is a divinely chosen means of turning away 
the heart from wordliness to godliness, that it may 
find peace. 

The many sorrows which embitter human life in 
spite of riches and honors and pleasures, testify that 
this divine decree is still in force. Prayer is not 
intended to abolish sorrow, but to sanctify it. We 
must triumph over the sorrows and vexations of life 
not by abolishing them, but by enduring them pa- 
tiently and without sin. Sanctified sorrow promotes 
the soul’s perfection. 

The physical world, with its varied soil, climate, 
seasons, and productions, has under the law of God 
become our schoolmaster. ‘Cursed is the ground for 
thy sake” is the law which was early pronounced 
upon the world. The earth withholds her strength 
and the productiveness of the ground seems to be re- 
duced in consequence of this enactment. The ground 
from that day, we are taught, brought forth thorns 
and thistles to mingle the fruits of toil with disap- 
pointment. History is but a repetition of man’s strug- 
gles with the elements of nature. This world is not 
an Eden. The curse upon the ground is not with- 

i 97 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


drawn, as the famines, floods, and drouths abundantly 
testify. Disappointment is ordained for our dis- 
cipline. It turns our thought and hope toward that 
higher, divine source, from which no soul ever turns 
away in disappointment. 

Prayer is not designed to save Christians from 
the chastening effects of this law of God, for Jesus 
declared, “He maketh His sun to rise on the evil and 
on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the 
unjust.” While Jehovah showed Israel special favors 
and providences in the old times as a reward of obe- 
dience, the universal law, as Jesus shows, is a law of 
impartiality in the administration of these laws. 
While prayer may not be employed to exempt us 
from its discipline, or to lessen its severity, it may 
sanctify the law with all its consequences to the high- 
est welfare of the soul. “To them that love God shall 
all things work together for good.” . 

We are living also under the law of physical 
death. God has said, ‘““Dust thou art, and unto dust 
shalt thou return.” Physical death has a legitimate 
place in nature. The law of death was in operation 
before the advent of mankind. Pain and the fear of 
death awaken in us the sense of self-preservation and 
the love of life. It would certainly be better that 
many creatures should live a brief time subject to 
pain, though in the enjoyment of a life in which 
pleasure far exceeded suffering, than that few should 
live forever in the world without suffering. Hence 
there is wisdom even in the laws of pain and death. 
Prayer is not to be employed as a means of escaping 

98 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


the power of physical death. While it is not the 
province of prayer.to baffle death, yet by its power 
the trembling soul is calmed and death is shorn of 
all its terrors. 

These laws of the Almighty are indispensable 
factors in the moral government of sinners. We cer- 
tainly may not hope to escape their consequences 
through prayer, for prayer has no such sphere or 
purpose. Medicine and surgery are ordained to re- 
duce human suffering to a minimum and to prolong 
life to the limit consistent with the laws of. nature. 
Many are under the impression this is the office of 
prayer, but it is a great mistake. If, however, it is 
the office of prayer to reduce human suffering to a 
minimum, and to prolong life to a maximum length, 
then prayer is the most stupendous failure the world 
has seen! 

We must contend, therefore, that Scripture does 
not give prayer any such sphere or purpose. We 
must adhere to the opinion that Biblical miracles, 
wrought through the agency of prayer, have always 
been in attestation of divinity, and have been wrought 
through the agency of some “spiritual gift’ bestowed 
by the Holy Spirit for that purpose. The discipline 
through which we pass under these laws of God be- 
comes, through the sanctifying power of prayer, a 
preparation for the world to come. 


99 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


(3) Tue Retation or Prayer to Naturat Gov- 
ERNMENT. 


There is no conflict between the legislative and the 
executive functions of the Supreme Ruler. A miracle 
is perfectly consistent with both these functions of 
God. The healing of the sick by miracle is no more 
a contradiction of divine law than is healing by the 
use of medicine. In one case the sickness is cured 
by direct divine agency, while in the other case it is 
cured by a secondary agency. We must remember, 
however, that the miracle and the medicine were not 
both employed for the same purpose, although both 
had the same result. Medicine is ordained for uni- 
versal use in reducing suffering to a minimum and 
prolonging life to a maximum length. But “spiritual 
gifts” and the miracles wrought through their agency 
were not ordained for universal use, or for any such 
purpose. They have been ordained for attesting di- 
vinity only. “And Moses said, Hereby ye shall know 
that the Lord hath sent me to do all these works; 
for I have not done them of mine own mind. If 
these men die the common death of all men—then 
the Lord hath not sent me. But if the Lord make a 
new thing, and the ground open her mouth and swal- 
low them up—then ye shall understand that these 
men have despised the Lord.” ‘Thus was the house 
of Korah destroyed, and the divine office of Moses 
was vindicated, and the authority of Jehovah proven 
to be divine. (Num. 16:28.) This point is also 
supported by the declaration of Jesus, “But because 


100 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


of the multitude which standeth around I said it, that 
they may believe that Thou didst send Me.” (John 
11: 42.) 

In miracle-working the possession of an appro- 
priate “spiritual gift’? was the first requisite. This 
“spiritual gift” could be used only for attesting di- 
vinity. It must be used only in Jesus’ name. The 
request must be made with implicit confidence in the 
promise of God to comply. “Believe that ye receive” 
was the last injunction. The “will” of God was not 
a factor in this law of miracles. The result did not 
depend upon any choice or caprice of the Supreme 
Being. When the conditions were complied with, the 
results were just as certain as in mathematics. God 
has so ordained. The law of miracles operated just 
as surely as did the law of gravitation; hence to the 
one possessing the requisite “spiritual gift’ it was 
possible for Jesus to say, “Believe that ye receive, and 
ye shall have.” 

How shall we reconcile the doctrine of prayer, 
as generally held, with the universal reign of in- 
variable law in nature? The present order of the 
physical world is founded upon the reign of immutable 
law. The order of nature is established and has sta- 
bility. The doctrine of prayer commonly held really 
declares all things are possible through the agency 
of prayer. If this doctrine of prayer is Scriptural, 
it brings Scripture into conflict with the laws of na- 
ture, for it offers the hope of annulling at will, tempo- 
rarily or permanently, for some particular purpose, 
any law of nature, such as the law of light, heat, 

101 


if 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


motion, electricity, or gravity. It would offer those 
who pray the hope of annulling at will the decrees 
of God by which labor, sorrow, disappointment, pain, 
and physical death were pronounced upon mankind 
in the time of Adam’s fall. It would really place 
them at will beyond the pale and power of the laws 
of nature, and take from God the reigns of govern- 
ment. Experience proves that prayer has no such 
office. Prayer, however, can be easily reconciled to 
the reign of physical law, and reconciled only by 
removing prayer from use in the physical world for 


_ mechanical results, and employing it only in the 


— 


moral sphere for spiritual ends. 

Humanity is subject to needs of two classes, the 
temporal and the spiritual. The Creator has made 
ample provision for supplying both classes of human 
needs. Ample provision has been made for supply- 
ing our temporal needs through the ordained laws of 
nature and in our own natural powers. The needs 
of the lower animal:kingdom have been provided for 
in the same way. We may learn a lesson from the 
birds. The Lord has provided for the birds, as Jesus 
shows in the Sermon on the Mount, and all without 
prayer and anxiety on their part for such things. 
Jesus here plainly teaches that our temporal needs 
are not properly the subject of prayer. 

Some contend that in the Lord’s Prayer the 
Savior prayed for the supply of temporal needs when 
He said, “Give us this day our daily bread.” It is 
declared, if He thus prayed for literal bread, so should 
we. But does He here teach us to ask for temporal 

102 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


food in the face of His own declaration, just made, 
“After all these things do the Gentiles seek?” Could 
He consistently ask God to bestow upon us, without 
toil, the things which cost labor, according to the law, 
“In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread?” 
Could Christ properly teach us to implore God for 
a favorable season and fruitful harvest when God had 
already decreed, “Cursed is the ground for thy sake?” 
No. Jesus prayed for those things which pertain 
to the spiritual nature, to that “Kingdom” which is 
“not of this world,” and for that “living Bread which 
cometh down from heaven.” 

The sphere of human activity in every earthly 
pursuit is limited by human capacities. Our temporal 
lives are limited by these capacities. This is in 
perfect accord with the teaching of Jesus in the par- 
able of the talents. We certainly may not expect to 
accomplish by prayer anything we can do for our- 
selves; nor may we hope to do, through prayer, those 
things which lie beyond our mental and physical 
capacities—unless perchance God has bestowed upon 
us some “spiritual gift” for the purpose. But this 
does not exclude Divine Providence from human his- 
tory, nor does it exclude divine inspiration from in- 
dividual life! Divine revelations of human duty are 
perpetual witnesses of Divine Providence in human 
history. And divine inspiration awakens ideals in 
every mind, in keeping with their capacities, which 
may be wrought out in results and achievements by 
personal genius and skill. The history of civilization 
seems to confirm these opinions. 

103 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Work has been the price of progress in secular 
life, hence the march of progress has been slow and 
laborious. But if prayer had the sphere and purpose 
which some attribute to it, prayer would have led 
the way of progress in leaps and bounds. History, 
however, teaches that the increase of knowledge has 
been by fragmentary discoveries and by slow growth, 
not as the result of prayer, but of observation, study, 
and hard work. Work has been the key which has 
opened the doors of geographical knowledge and dis- 
covery, and of perfection in the industrial and fine 
arts, and of triumph in medicine and surgery, and of 
civil liberty and purer government. Experience 
teaches that prayer can not take the place of either 
muscle or brains in the struggle for existence, and that 
it does not encroach in any way upon their spheres of 
activity. 

But while God has provided for the supply of 
our temporal needs in the established order of the 
natural world, and in our own native powers, we 
must not forget that we are ordained to live in this 
world subject to the divine laws of labor, disappoint- 
ment, suffering, and death. These are factors both 
in natural and moral government. When we reach 
the limits of our capacities for battling with disease 
or disaster or defeat, as all are destined, we then 
must bow to the inevitable. It is the law of nature. 
We may not expect, in time of sickness, or in the 
day of disaster or defeat in secular affairs, to avert 
or escape these physical ills by means of prayer. 
Prayer has no such office. Strength and wisdom and 

104 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


skill prevail in the affairs of secular life, while prayer 
prevails in the higher spiritual kingdom, for Jesus 
said, “My Kingdom is not of this world.” Prayer 
is useful in the day of sickness and adversity, how- 
ever, for it is the means of obtaining divine forgive- 
ness and the sanctification of the woes of life to the 
enrichment of the soul in all the gentle virtues. At 
such times prayer will bring to the soul the heavenly 
manna and living water which the physical world 
can not supply. Prayer will turn great physical 
adversity into great spiritual prosperity! 

Every devout Christian laments the widespread 
defection of the people from the Church and the 
growing apathy and indifference to religion so ap- 
parent everywhere; and many are earnestly seeking 
after the cause and the remedy for these conditions. 
In offering a possible solution of this vexing problem, 
we would mention a factor which has been over- 
looked. The growing indifference of the people to 
the demands of religion upon them is due very largely 
to the fact that confidence has been lost in the value 
and efficacy of prayer as a result of giving to prayer 
a sphere and province which does not belong to it. 
Jesus insisted, “My Kingdom is not of this world,” 
and yet a great body of Christians has been strug- 
gling to get into that spiritual Kingdom all the secular 
kingdoms as well. Jesus declared, “My Kingdom is 
not of this world,’ and yet the Church has insisted 
on diverting to secular and material uses prayer, 
which is an agency and power belonging to the re- 
ligious and spiritual Kingdom only, And what has 

105 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


been the result? The result has been that prayer 
has failed wherever employed outside its proper re- 
ligious sphere; and with the further result that the 
disappointed ones have lost confidence in the value 
and efficacy of prayer. When confidence has once 
been lost in the value and efficacy of prayer, the de- 
cline in religious interest and life will be rapid; for 
prayer is the foundation of true religion. A long 
step will be taken toward a real revival of religious 
interest when the Church everywhere confines prayer 
to its proper use. 

It is commonly held by Christian people that 
their prayers are often answered by the Lord in 
ways they did not expect or wish, and all because 
the Lord could not grant them their desires—yet 
He honored their faith by answering their prayers 
in an unexpected manner. This, however, is a poor 
makeshift and miserable evasion which is really de- 
manded in explaining the failure of prayer in many 
instances. The theory which holds that all things 
are possible to us through prayer must fall back upon 
some such subterfuge to explain the failures of prayer. 
Jesus repudiated just such subterfuges in the use of 
prayer when He said, ‘Or what man is there of you 
who, if his son shall ask him for a loaf, will give 
him a stone; or if he shall ask for a fish, will give 
him a serpent?” Jesus clearly teaches that God does 
not give us one thing when we ask for another, any 
more than the “man” mentioned would give a stone 
to the son who asked for a loaf of bread. Rather 
than seek refuge in such an excuse for the failure 

106 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


of prayer, and rather than offer such an evasion to 
make a failure appear to be not a failure, it would 
be more sensible and more Scriptural to concede that 
the prayer offered did not comply with Scriptural 
conditions, or was offered for something outside the 
proper sphere of prayer. Christian consistency will 
go a long way in commanding the world’s respect 
for Christian doctrine. Let fanatical adherence to 
the false theory of prayer cease, and let prayer be 
given its proper sphere and place, and there will be 
no failures to bring discredit upon the Christian re- 
ligion. 
(4) Tue Rexicious Spuere or Prayer. 


Human nature is complex. It comprises six or 
more factors. They include the physical, mental, 
social, wsthetic, emotional, and religious elements. 
Each of these elements of the human nature has its 
sphere of activity and its needs, and each is de- 
pendent upon outside agencies for its highest develop- 
ment and usefulness. The physical nature depends 
upon the external world and the forces of nature 
for its life-sustaining food. The social nature is de- 
pendent upon intercourse and association with others 
for its refinement. The intellectual powers could not 
reach their highest development and achievements 
were it not for the external world with its myriad 
of facts for observation and study. The esthetic 
element in mankind craves the beautiful, and finds 
satisfaction in the study of nature and in works of 
art. The emotional nature depends upon the influ- 

107 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


ence of sights and sounds and activities in the world 
around us for its culture. God has ordained the laws 
and processes of the physical world by which are 
supplied the various needs of these elements in human 
nature. 

But there is also a religious element in human 
nature. What provision has God made for supply- 
ing the needs of this element in our nature? The 
law of labor has been ordained as a means of sup- 
plying our physical needs; and in a similar way the 
law of prayer has been ordained as the means of 
supplying the needs of the soul and ministering to 
its religious life. Human life pertains unto two king- 
doms—the physical and the spiritual. Labor pro- 
vides man his food and wins for him dominion over 
the physical world and its forces; but it is prayer 
which finds the way of pardon, and the regeneration 
of the sinful heart, and fellowship with God. The 
physical world with its forces and processes sup- 
plies all the needs of man except the needs of his 
religious nature. These are supplied from God 
through the agency of prayer. 

Prayer, therefore, has only a religious sphere, and 
belongs to the moral realm and kingdom of conscience. 
Prayer really concerns only those things which be- 
long to the moral Kingdom which Christ has founded 
and over which He reigns as King, for He said, “My 
Kingdom is not of this world.” But may we not 
offer prayers concerning temporal and secular things? 
Let us remember now the words of Jesus when He 
said, “Be not therefore anxious. saying, What shall 

108 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal 
shall we be clothed? For after all these things do 
the Gentiles seek; for your Heavenly Father knoweth 
that ye have need of all these things.” These things 
are not the proper objects of prayer, for they are 
to be obtained by labor. Let not Christians continue 
to pray as did the Gentiles, therefore, for the “King- 
dom of God and His righteousness” are the proper 
objects of prayer. However, God will deal with 
every prayer according to His own will—either by 
granting or withholding the object of our petitions. 

However, prayer is admissible in all the affairs 
of life, yet not for the purpose of bringing about 
mechanical results in secular things, but for the sanc- 
tification of both fortune and misfortune, that they 
may all minister to the soul’s welfare. Prayer is not 
to be employed to save us from the discipline of 
labor, disappointment, suffering, and from death, but 
to perfect in us every Christian grace while enduring 
that discipline, and in the hour of death. Prayer 
is intended to promote our spiritual perfection in this 
world that we may be fit for the next. 

Christians should pray as Jesus prayed. When 
He prayed for His disciples—John 17—shortly be- 
fore His death, He did not pray God to preserve 
their physical health, or to prolong their lives, or give 
them success in the ordinary affairs of life, as Chris- 
tians pray to-day; but He prayed for their preserva- 
tion from spiritual enemies and dangers. He prayed 
the Father to sanctify all their powers to the life and 
work of righteousness, and keep them in peace amid 

109 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


evil and adverse surroundings. The Lord’s Prayer 
is of a similar deep spiritual import. Its threefold 
petition, “Give—Forgive—Deliver,” covers the three 
great needs of the human soul. 

The prayer for pardon is the prayer of the soul 
guilty and unforgiven. It must be in strict compli- 
ance with four well-defined conditions: 

1. The guilty soul must exhibit a proper rever- 
ence for the law of God. “He that turneth away his 
ear from hearing the law, even his prayer is an 
abomination.” 


2. The prayer for pardon must be accompanied 
with a proper conception of the sinfulness of sin. 
“Tf I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not 
hear.” : 

3. The prayer for pardon must be offered with 
repentance. “Repent therefore of this thy wicked- 
ness, and pray the Lord if perhaps the thought of 
thy heart shall be forgiven thee.” 

4. The soul seeking forgiveness must manifest a 
forgiving spirit toward others. ‘But if ye forgive 
not men their trespasses, neither will your Father 
forgive your trespasses.” 

The petitions “Give” and ‘Deliver’ are the 
prayers of the soul forgiven. They concern the 
deepest needs of the spiritual nature in the trials and 
triumphs of the Christian life. These requests must 
be made in accord with four clearly defined condi- 
tions: 

1. Faith in God is requisite. ‘But without faith 
it is impossible to please Him: for he that cometh 

110 


IS PRAYER A FAILURE? 


to God must believe that He is, and that He is a 
Rewarder of them that diligently seek Him.” 

2. The wisdom and purpose of God must be con- 
sulted. Jesus said, “Father, if Thou be willing, re- 
move this cup from Me: nevertheless, not My will, but 
Thine be done.” 

3. The prayers of the Christian must be accom- 
panied with humility and patience. “I waited pa- 
tiently for the Lord, and He inclined unto me and 
heard my cry.” 

4. They must be attended with thanksgiving. 
“Rejoice in the Lord alway: again I will say, Rejoice. 
Let your forbearance be known unto all men. The 
Lord is at hand. In nothing be anxious; but in every- 
thing by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving 
let your requests be made known unto God. And the 
peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall 
guard your hearts and your thoughts in Christ Jesus.” 
This Scripture is often quoted as teaching us to pray 
for secular ends, as well as for spiritual results. It 
is a serious mistake. The Philippians were anxious 
concerning certain spiritual errors and evils which 
menaced their faith and purity. Paul exhorted them 
not to be anxious, but in everything which threatened 
their salvation they were, by prayer with thanksgiv- 
ing, to find that peace with God which guards the 
heart and the thoughts. 

Prayer thus becomes the source of strength and 
consolation to the godly soul, and insures the final 
triumph of the tempted and tried over the wiles of 
the evil one, 

111 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Let the formula for the use of “spiritual gifts’ 
be carefully distinguished from the formula for ef- 
fective prayer ; and let prayer be confined to its proper 
religious sphere, and it will never be found to be a 
failure. 

The universal beliefs are the truest. If an act is 
universal among mankind, it is because it is founded 
in some universal fact or experience. Prayer in some 
form is universal among mankind. The cry to the 
Unseen for aid and blessing wells up from the race 
universal in time of need. The nature of man com- 
prises several elements. Among them will be found 
the physical, intellectual, ethical, emotional, esthetic, 
and religious factors. Mankind is religious by nature. 
It is by the agency of prayer that we commune with 
God and worship Him. Men become like the God 
they worship. In the worship of the Creator who 
is infinite in all moral perfections, man, through the 
agency of prayer, becomes imbued in some measure 
with the gentle graces, faith, hope, love, justice, tem- 
perance, prudence, and fortitude, which inhere in the 
Divine Being. The man who is sincere and who re- 
nounces evil will find in prayer to God a sure solace 
and the impulse to a holy life—to that man prayer 
will not prove a failure. 


112 


VII. 
IS THE CHURCH A FAILURE? 


The rationalist assumes it is. He tells us the 
Church is not a divine institution and, moreover, that 
it has retarded progress more than it has helped it. 

“Jesus came and spake unto them, saying, All 
authority hath been given unto Me in heaven and on 
earth. Go ye therefore and make disciples of all 
nations; and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the 
end of the world.” (Matt. 28:18, 19.) Jesus plainly 
declared His divine authority over the moral kingdom ; 
and upon the basis of that authority He sent forth 
the disciples with His gospel and commanded them 
to disciple all nations. Moreover, He gave them His 
pledge to sustain them and give them success even 
to the end of the gospel era. 

The Christian world acknowledges the divinity 
of Jesus, and believes the Church which He founded 
to be of divine origin and authority. The rationalist, 
however, denies the divinity of Jesus and, as a matter 
of course, denies the Church any divine element. 
The Church, as an institution, is both human and 
divine in its elements. Its clergy and laity consist 
of human beings, to be sure, and its polity and gov- 
ernment are human devices—but the Spirit inspiring 
the Church and the ethics and religion taught by the 
Church are divine. 

» 113 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Is the Church a failure, then? What is the 
avowed mission of the Church? Its mission, based 
upon the authority of Jesus, is to disciple all nations. 
The Kingdom of righteousness assumed organic form 
in God’s revelation to Moses when the civil, moral, 
and ceremonial laws were given; when the priesthood 
was established, and when the Hebrew nation took 
the covenant of obedience to God. The Mosaic 
Church, or Judaism, thus organized, was established 
in Palestine, which was crossed by the caravan routes 
from all the civilized world. The Hebrews, a people 
possessing in a peculiar degree genius for religion, 
were thus placed at a strategic point, as the custodians 
of divine revelations, to become the evangelists of 
the human race. 

The rejection of Jesus by the Hebrew nation re- 
sulted in giving the gospel to the Gentile world and 
the rise of the Christian Church among the Gentiles. 

The Gentile world was the heathen world in the 
days of Christ. How great and hopeless must have 
appeared the task of discipling the Gentile world 
when Paul turned to the Gentiles with the gospel! 
The Church at once encountered the idolatrous sys- 
tems of the times, but the gospel of Christ has con- 
quered them all. The old gods of the Mediterranean 
countries and the countries of Northern Europe are 
without a worshiper to-day. With the passing of the 
old idolatries, with their thievish, lustful, and mur- 
derous deities, and bloody and immoral rites, Chris- 
tianity became established with its lofty ideals of 
Deity, its noble forms of worship, and exalted type 

114 


IS THE CHURCH A FAILURE? 


of moral character and personal conduct: for men 
always cultivate the moral qualities of the god they 
worship. 

The triumph of Christianity over those old idol- 
atrous systems was a most momentous event in the 
history of religion and philosophy. It must be re- 
membered that the philosophies of Socrates and Plato 
and Aristotle—systems of truth mixed with error, 
yet withal, noble systems of philosophy—had been 
completely overwhelmed and submerged by the vile 
idolatries of Greece and Rome. Those sages of old 
certainly spoke by divine inspiration in many of their 
utterances, and were far in advance of their times. 
While the great doctrines of a Supreme Being, infinite 
in power, wisdom, and goodness: human duty to know 
God and imitate His goodness; virtue not attained by 
art, but by communication from God; and immortality, 
—were taught, still they lacked the power of Chris- 
tianity. It was because they failed to point the way 
from sin to God by the way of repentance and faith 
and regeneration. It remained for Christ to expound 
the complete doctrine of salvation and to lead men 
from sin to regeneration and to the new life of which 
Plato dreamed. Yet the rationalist tells us the Church 
is a failure. 

Christianity, of which the Church was the ex- 
ponent, comprised all the ethical and religious truths 
taught by those early philosophies, but excluded their 
errors, such as the dogma of the world-soul, the pre- 
existence of man, the plurality of gods, the com- 
munity of women and property, and the malignant, 


115 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


occult property in matter which is antagonistic to 
God. Moreover, Christianity teaches something more 
than was taught by those old philosophers; such as 
repentance, faith, forgiveness, regeneration, and the 
facts of Christian experience. The Church, thus min- 
istering to the moral need of mankind and satisfying 
that need, has also conquered the false doctrines of 
the Stoic and the Epicurean, and the wild beliefs of 
the nations of Northern and Western Europe with 
their idolatries. 

The struggle with idolatry and false philosophy 
was long and bitter, just as we would expect it to 
be, but the Church emerged victorious at the close 
of the Dark Ages. The overthrow of those false 
systems of ethics and religion by the hunted and 
persecuted Church was the miracle of history. The 
prophecy recorded in Daniel was fulfilled in the 
Reformation, which marked the close of the Dark 
Ages. The era of mental, industrial, moral, and re- 
ligious activities then began, and the age of discovery, 
invention, and knowledge was ushered in. The 
Reformation and Renaissance were the triumph of 
the gospel of Christ over the spirit of idolatry and 
ignorance, which had been opposing the march of 
truth and progress from remotest times. And yet 
the rationalist tells us the Church is a failure! 

It is not difficult to perceive the truth in the 
parable of the leaven when we consider the trials 
of the early Church and her triumphs over the horde 
of ancient and modern enemies. When Christ gave 
His disciples their great commission to disciple all 

116 


IS THE CHURCH A FAILURE? 


nations, there were but five hundred Christians in 
the world—but to-day we may look out upon a mighty 
host of five hundred million people who are nominally 
Christian and live within the Christian environment. 
At the present rate of evangelization throughout the 
heathen world, it will be a matter of but a few dec- 
ades when the human race will have been brought 
under the benign influence of the gospel, and every 
home will be placed in a Christian environment— 
and this is the mission of the Church. Yet the ration- 
alist tells us the Church is a failure! 

Slavery was universal in the days of Jesus. It 
flourished in spite of the philosophies of Confucius, 
or Buddha, or Plato. The Church did not make war 
upon the institution of slavery with fire and steel, 
but made war upon it by teaching the Golden Rule 
and the law of love. It quickened the public con- 
science and created public sentiment in favor of hu- 
man liberty—and the Church has so well fulfilled her 
mission that to-day slavery is abolished in all civilized 
lands, and exists only in some remote corners of bar- 
barous lands. And yet the rationalist tells us the 
Church is a failure! 

Polygamy was practiced throughout the civilized 
world at the beginning of the Christian era, and in 
spite of all the wisdom of the old philosophers. 
Christ, however, announced the law of monogamy as 
of divine origin and sanction. The Church has stead- 
fastly taught this doctrine of Christ—and wherever 
in the world Christ is honored and His gospel obeyed, 
there polygamy is abolished. The Christian home 

117 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


to-day is established in all the civilized world. The 
Church has led in the great warfare of reform, and 
as a result womankind has been uplifted and emanci- 
pated. She now enters upon her rightful inheritance 
of equality with man in his dominion over the king- 
doms of the world. The Christian womanhood of 
the twentieth century is the highest type in intel- 
lectual, moral, and social qualities which the world 
has seen. And yet the rationalist tells us the Church 
is a failure! 

True to her mission, the Church has been a leader 
in all moral reforms. No backward step has been 
taken since the day of Pentecost. The saloon has 
been the greatest curse of modern times. It has pol- 
luted business, corrupted every department of govern- 
ment, impoverished manhood, degraded womanhood, 
blighted childhood, until, led by the Church, the busi- 
ness, educational, and social forces of the Common- 
wealth are now arising in their might—and the saloon 
is doomed. The Church likewise has led in the war- 
fare against the opium traffic, the cigarette, and white 
slavery, until at last, through the agency of public 
opinion and legal processes, these crying evils are 
surely going the way of other National vices. And 
yet the rationalist tells us the Church is a failure! 

The Church is still marching on to even greater 
victories. International conventions of the laymen 
of the Church have been held to devise ways and 
means of bringing the world up to higher ethical and 
religious planes of life. Great sums of money have 
been given, large numbers of volunteers have gone 

118 


IS THE CHURCH A FAILURE? 


forth to the work, and the slogan of the laymen’s 
movement is this, “The evangelization of the world 
in this generation.” Past successes encourage re- 
doubled activities. The spread of the gospel has 
proven a great blessing to mankind. The business 
man acknowledges this, for it is known Christianity 
softens the asperities of heathenism, it reforms say- 
ages, it teaches them the habits of industry, and so 
adds to the world’s commerce. We will cite a few 
facts: 

The Hawaiian Islands in 1820 were occupied by 
a people sunk in barbarism. They had no written 
language. They had no commerce or intercourse with 
the outside world. Fifty years of missionary work 
among the natives cost twelve hundred and twenty 
thousand dollars. As a result the people were lifted 
out of barbarism. Hawaii became a region of schools 
and churches, of cultivated fields and orchards. The 
people were given a written language by the mis- 
sionaries. The natives have produced two hundred 
works of real literary merit since they emerged from 
savagery, less than one hundred years ago. This great 
transformation, which cost $1,200,000, has paid from 
the commercial standpoint, for in 1896 the exports 
and imports amounted to nearly twenty-three million 
dollars. 

One hundred years ago the Society Islands were 
inhabited by degraded savages. Captain Cook de- 
clared Tahiti ‘‘could serve neither public interest nor 
private ambition.” But the Christian missionary 
found his way among that benighted people. Sixteen 

119 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


years were spent without a convert from heathenism. 
Then a great transformation took place. The old 
ideas and cruel orgies gave way to the power of the 
teachings of the gospel, and those barbarous tribes 
took their places among the civilized. The annual 
trade of those islands amounts to more than two mil- 
lion dollars. Statistics prove that from fifty thousand 
to one hundred thousand dollars enter the channels 
of the world’s trade every year for every Christian 
missionary ever sent to the islands of the Pacific. 

Under the wholesome influence of the gospel, 
ignorant and vicious savages have become intelligent, 
industrious, self-respecting, law-abiding people, the 
producers and buyers of commodities entering the 
commerce of the’ world. Yet the rationalist tells us 
the Church is a failure! 

Science owes a great debt to the Church. The 
work of the Christian missionary has added very 
materially to the domain of human knowledge. Writ- 
ten languages have been created for many remote peo- 
ples, and a sacred literature prepared for them 
through the untiring efforts of the missionaries. The 
Bible has been printed in five hundred and twenty- 
six languages and dialects, so the sacred volume can 
now be studied in the tongues of nine-tenths of the 
human race. 

The educator and scientist can not fail to be 
impressed with the scientific value of the Church to 
humanity, when it is remembered the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church alone has educational institutions in 
the United States, including universities, colleges, 

120 


IS THE CHURCH A FAILURE? 


professional schools, secondary schools, Southern 
schools, institutes, and training schools, numbering 
116; while its educational institutions in foreign lands 
number 240, a total of 356 throughout the world. 
These have 4,192 in Faculty, 74,044 students, and 
property and endowment valued at $56,822,000. 

The Church is doing a marvelous work in the field 
of literature. The Methodist Episcopal Church, for 
example, issues twelve great weekly periodicals, be- 
sides a bi-monthly magazine. It also issues forty- 
six other publications devoted to departmental work 
of the Church. Its semi-official and unofficial weeklies 
comprise 16 papers published in the United States, 
13 in Europe, 4 in Africa, 5 in China, 12 in India, 
and eleven in other parts of the world. Since its 
organization the sales of The Methodist Book Concern 
have reached the grand total of $86,332,177. 

The field of benevolent endeavor has been rich 
in results. During the eighty-nine years of its exist- 
ence the Board of Foreign Missions of this Church 
has received and disbursed $46,485,597—and not one 
dollar has been lost or diverted from its intended use. 

William Carey baptized his first convert from 
heathenism in India in 1800—and to-day India boasts 
of four million native Christians. China, Japan, 
Korea, Turkey, and many other lands are in great 
religious awakenings. Intolerance, foot-binding, vile 
marriage customs, the evil system of caste, and many 
superstitions are breaking down under the power of 
the gospel of Christ. Thirty years ago Uganda, 
Africa, was a heathen State where cruelty and super- 

121 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


stition held sway. The Church through its activities, 
however, has changed all this, for at present 360,000 
of its inhabitants—more than half its entire popula- 
tion—are Christians. The Medical Missionary Asso- 
ciation, which recently met in Peking, reported five 
hundred medical missionaries in China. Christian hos- 
pitals in heathen lands are giving medical and surgical 
attention to a million sufferers each year—and a great 
part of this service is without money and without price. 
A monster Sabbath school rally was held in Korea 
this year, the largest meeting in the history of modern 
missions in the Orient. It was attended by 14,700 
scholars and workers, besides 5,000 visitors. And so 
the Church is steadily penetrating all distant lands, 
from the equator to the poles, and with its open Bible, 
its hospitals, and its schools is lifting the benighted 
millions out of their degradation into a Christian en- 
vironment—and yet the rationalist tells us the Church 
is a failure! | 

The Church has a mission to the individual and to 
the nation. It urges the individual to repentance and 
the new life to be found in God’s pardoning grace 
and regeneration, It leads in national reforms by 
quickening the public conscience and by education. 
The Church has thus done much for the improvement 
of the condition of labor, for the abolition of child 
labor, the betterment of the condition of the working 
woman, an honest day of labor, an honest wage, and 
a weekly day of rest for the toiler. The gospel has 
opened the doors of liberty to an oppressed race, has 
fostered democracy to the downfall of tyrannical goy- 

122 


IS THE CHURCH A FAILURE? 


ernments, and has brought forth fraternalism to bless 
and comfort the widow and the fatherless. And yet 
the rationalist tells us the Church is a failure! 

The Church is fulfilling her mission, for the Chris- 
tian environment grows apace and the era of uni- 
versal peace draws near. The Hague Tribunal, the 
Palace of Peace, the treaties of arbitration signed 
by fifty countries, the annual settlement by arbitra- 
tion of the international disputes, and the growing 
public opinion in favor of disarmament, all surely 
certifies the end of war is near, when “they shall 
beat their swords into plowshares and their spears 
into pruning hooks, and the nations shall learn war 
no more.’ 

The Church stands for the moral law. It has 
been waging a winning warfare for the moral law 
for nineteen centuries. To-day the financial strength 
of the world, the military power, the intellectual su- 
premacy, the moral superiority, and the industrial 
leadership, all are in the possession of Christendom. 
And so the Church, though launched in weakness and 
without force of numbers or social, financial, legal, 
political, or military standing, has conquered the 
world—and yet the rationalist tells us the Church 
is a failure! 

The map of the world has been changed many 
times since Pentecost, but the Church has taken no 
backward step. The gospel is winning its way in 
the world upon its own merits. The rise of denomina- 
tions has been decried as a weakness in the Church. 
Not so, however. The rise of denominations, together 

123 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


with the several systems of theology and forms of 
government, has all been due to the fact that Christ, 
the Head of the Church, did not formulate a definite 
creed, or prescribe a set form of worship, or estab- 
lish a distinct type of government for the Church. 
The rise of denominations has been a logical and 
legitimate development of the Christian system from 
the embryonic state in which Christ left it with His 
disciples, and it must have been foreseen by Him. 
When the Church consisted of but one denomination, 
the greatest evils were given the sanction of the 
Church and the most vicious doctrines were based 
upon the Scriptures; but the rise of denominations 
has thrown a safeguard around the Scriptures, and 
has exposed the evil practices and unholy dogmas of 
the mother Church—so the Church has not lost step 
with the march of progress. The rise of denomina- 
tions has led to greater activity in evangelizing the 
nations and in promoting great national reforms; and 
the competition among the denominations has proven 
a boon to the sinning and suffering world, for they 
now vie with each other in works of Christian charity. 
Still the rationalist tells us the Church is a failure! 

But, when driven to his last ditch, the rationalist 
retorts, “The Church is a failure—for look at the 
vacant pulpits!”” Just so. But there are also some 
vacant farms, and empty houses, and abandoned 
mines, and deserted factories, and broken-down news- 
papers, and railroads in bankruptcy—but all this 
proves nothing against the progress of the twentieth 
century. These things have only a local bearing. 

124 


IS THE CHURCH A FAILURE? 


And so, although some pulpits are vacant, and some 
congregations are small, and some prayer-meetings 
are discontinued, and the camp-meeting is no longer 
popular—it all proves nothing against the efficiency 
of the gospel the Church proclaims. The old methods 
and activities have simply given way to new and 
more fruitful efforts. A score of Christian activities 
now take the time and money and attention of the 
Christian worker, where a generation ago the oppor- 
tunities for effective service were few. 

Moreover, where the people more and more ap- 
proach the Christian standard of morals, the revival 
will be much less startling in its results than in the 
days when but few people measured up to the high 
Christian standards. But this proves nothing against 
the Church, for it has been the faithful work of the 
Church which has brought the public up to the high 
standards of the gospel. Therefore, in view of its 
noble triumphs over idolatry, false philosophy, hea- 
thenism, slavery, polygamy, war, and the saloon; and 
in view of its lofty ideals of God and human duty 
and destiny, we are bold to declare the Church is the 
grandest institution and the most notable success the 
sun ever shone upon! 

Moreover, the divinity of Christ, the divine mis- 
sion of the Church, and His divine presence with the 
Church as it disciples the nations, are all attested by 
the triumphs of the Church! 

The American Institute for Social Service recently 
sent a questionnaire to a large number of persons 
engaged in social and philanthropic work, in an effort 

125 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


to ascertain what per cent of these active workers 
in humanitarian causes might be presumed to owe 
something to the inspiration of the Church. A total 
of 1,012 persons responded, and of this number sey- 
enty-six per cent were communicants in some Chris- 
tian Church. It may be interesting to know that 
twenty-one per cent belonged to the Episcopal 
Church, sixteen per cent were Congregationalists, 
fifteen per cent Presbyterians, fourteen per cent 
Methodists, six per cent Universalists and Unitarians, 
and five per cent were Roman Catholics. Let it be 
remembered, moreover, that the remaining twenty- 
four per cent, who were not members of any Christian 
Church, were nevertheless reared in a Christian en- 
vironment and under the influence of Christian teach- 
ing and example. Colonel Ingersoll, the great infidel, 
was reared in a Christian environment and was in- 
debted to the Bible for every noble principle he 
advocated. Where the heathen world has produced 
one Socrates, it has produced a hundred Neros. 
Where the Christian world has produced 1,012 philan- 
thropists, all of them are either Christians by pro- 
fession or are the products of a Christian environ- 
ment. Gladstone declared he had come into contact 
with sixty master minds during his public career, and 
all but six of them were professing Christians—and 
yet the rationalist tells us the Church is a failure! 


126 


VIII. 


THE GENESIS OF MATTER, MIND, AND 
FORCE. 


A stupy of the kingdoms of nature discloses the ex- 
istence of a mighty trinity—matter, mind, and force. 

Are matter, mind, and force realities, or are all 
illusions only? Ask yourself the question, Do I exist, 
and if so, how may I know it to be a certainty? The 
answer of Des Cartes is irrefutable, “I think—there- 
fore I am.” To be sure, man must exist before he 
ean think. 

How, therefore, may I know that matter exists? 
I may be certain of the real existence of iron, because 
by the application of force to a piece of iron I change 
its form and state of being. These changes are per- 
manent, or until it is again acted upon by some ex- 
ternal force. Therefore change wrought in matter 
by the application of force demonstrates the existence 
of matter. 

And is the existence of force demonstrable? 
Change wrought in matter by the application of force 
stands as a demonstration of the existence of force. 

But how may we know God exists? Human con- 
ception, reasoning, and judgment, which are purely 
mental acts, attest the existence of the human mind. 
It logically follows, therefore, that the many exhibi- 
tions of conception, reasoning, and judgment which 

127 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


we perceive in the kingdom of nature around us, and 
which certainly are not the products of any earthly 
or finite mind, attest to the existence of that imminent 
and transcendent Mind which we call God. 

The kingdom of matter comprises some seventy- 
eight simple elements. These substances or their 
compounds enter into the great host of organic and 
inorganic forms found in the natural world. These 
simple elements possess a variety of physical prop- 
erties, but all have one notable characteristic—they 
all are inert. 

The kingdom of mind in the world, so far as 
known, has its basis and seat in the organic, animate 
kingdom. This kingdom of mind displays certain 
characteristics peculiar to itself, such as life and the 
power of reproduction, consciousness, thought, mem- 
ory, volition, and will; together with conception, 
reasoning, judgment. 

The kingdom of force, as observed in the world, is 
known to us by a great variety of activities and by 
the exhibition of a variety of powers known as motion, 
heat, light, electricity, magnetism, actinism, and chem- 
ical affinity. The doctrine of conservation of energy, 
which considers the universe as a whole and the sum 
of all its forces as being a constant quantity, is recog- 
nized; and the correlation of energy, which refers to 
the convertibility of one form of energy into another, 
is also accepted. 

It is but natural that the inquiring student should 
desire to know something of the origin of the members 
of this great trinity of existences. From whence 

128 


GENESIS OF MATTER, MIND, AND FORCE. 


came the seventy-eight chemical elements of which the 
world is composed? The elements of nature were not 
self-created, for it is apparent at once that something 
can not produce itself from nothing. Moreover, noth- 
ing can not produce something from nothing. It is 
equally certain that abstract force was not the creator 
of these elements, for force does not exist in the 
abstract; and moreover, even force could not produce 
something from nothing. God Himself could not have 
produced the chemical elements from nothing, as some 
have supposed. 

In this problem of the origin of matter we find 
two alternatives before us: The simple elements of 
nature are eternal, or they were created. If the ele- 
ments of the physical world are co-eternal with God, 
it does not limit or affect the supremacy of God in 
the physical kingdom. The material elements of the 
world are inert, while God has power, volition, and 
will. The elements of nature are but passive elements 
which God employs in numberless activities in build- 
ing His material kingdom. The conclusion that the 
elements of matter are eternal, and had no Creator, 
does not give to natural law independence of God. 
The inert elements of nature are passive in His hands, 
subject always to the laws of nature, which are His 
behests. 

But if the other alternative be accepted, and it be 
declared the elements of nature were created by the 
Almighty, we are led to inquire, Since nothing existed 
but God, then of what did God create the material 
elements of the world? If nothing existed but God, 

° 129 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


it is apparent the elements of the world must have 
been created from the essence of the Divine Being 
Himself. We venture the opinion that the ether is 
identical with God. God created the elements of 
nature, if at all, from the ether, and gave to them 
their various properties according to His will, and 
made them subject to His power and His law. It is 
the dream of physical philosophy that all the chemical 
elements will one day be resolved into the single 
original element from which all have been evolved. 
We would behold the wonderful spectacle then of the 
elements of the material world returning to the orig- 
inal spiritual element from which all were evolved by 
divine power—and “God becomes All and in all.” 

Who shall tell us something of the origin of the 
kingdom of mind which reigns in the material world? 
The materialist would have us believe the animate 
kingdom of nature, in the creatures of which earthly 
mind has its seat, was created by force, which operated 
in some mysterious way upon the chemical substances. 
But science plainly teaches that all earthly life orig- 
inated in some form of antecedent life. It originated, 
therefore, in God, who is in the world, though not 
a part of the world. 

The existence of every plant or animal begins as 
a single cell to which life has been imparted. Its 
growth is but the division of the original cell into 
parts, and the specialization of those parts. The vital 
powers have their seat in the cell. They are not 
merely phenomena of some chemical compound, but 
belong only to the organism or living machine called 

130 


GENESIS OF MATTER, MIND, AND FORCE. 


the cell. The physical foundation of life is some- 
thing more than a chemical compound. Life is more 
than a mere problem in chemistry. Chemical com- 
pounds are formed in the world by natural agencies, 
but these agencies are wholly unable to produce a 
living organism or explain the origin of a living cell. 
We can conceive of Mind applying force to the chem- 
ical elements and producing organic and inorganic 
forms. We can also conceive of Mind applying force 
to these elements and producing the living cell, the 
animal and vegetable form, and man—in whom matter, 
mind, and energy inhere. But we can not conceive 
of force applying itself to matter and producing man, 
for earthly life proceeds from antecedent life. That 
antecedent life from which the carthly animate king- 
dom sprang is uncreated. It is eternal, and is known 
to us as God. 

But from whence came force, which is exhibited 
in so many forms of activity in the world? Force 
does not exist in the abstract. It has no existence 
apart from substance to which it may have been im- 
parted, or from the cause in which it originates. 
Force originates in either mind or matter. Let us 
trace it to its origin. It will be observed that work 
is wrought by the agency of the natural forces. The 
processes of the natural forces are intelligible. Forces 
and materials are adjusted to each other in certain 
ratios and relations. Means accomplish given ends. 
All this gives evidence of forethought and purpose. 
Forethought and purpose found in the works of na~- 
ture prove that Mind exists somewhere, as forethought 

131 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


and purpose are mental products. An_ intelligible 
process is the product of intelligence. Work is a 
product of force, but intelligence, forethought, and 
purpose are products of mind. Work is a product 
of force operating upon matter, and the intelligence 
and forethought and purpose seen in that work does 
not originate either in matter or force, but in mind. 
That Mind is God. 

In his contention that force has its origin in mat- 
ter, the materialist meets another difficulty. We may 
spread out before us the seventy-eight simple ele- 
ments. Each has certain properties, yet in itself and 
apart from all other substances and external forces 
not one of them can originate any of the forms of 
force. Every one of them is inert, whether it be at 
rest or in motion. “Every body continues in a state 
of rest or uniform motion in a straight line, unless 
acted upon by some external force,” is the law of 
physics. If the materialist is correct, then these 
separate substances ought to be able to inaugurate 
the various activities seen in the world. But the 
simple substances, unaided by electricity or mag- 
netism or some other external force, have no such 
power. It has been suggested that radium, by its 
new and amazing power, will confirm the theory of 
the materialist. But radium does not act independ- 
ently of external forces. Its operations are electro- 
lytic. Professor Bequerel, of the Paris Academy of 
Science, finds the emanations from radium are due 
to electrical agency, which gradually reduces the mass 
of radium. So radium is not the creator. 

132 


GENESIS OF MATTER, MIND, AND FORCE. 


The energy of the bent spring has been thought 
to point to the molecules of simple substances as 
originating force. The spring, when bent by some 
external force—and it can not bend itself with- 
out first being bent by an external agency—tends 
constantly to recover its position of least resistance. 
This tendency and struggle is due to the elasticity of 
the molecules, one of the properties of steel. The 
molecules resist bending and constantly tend to return 
to the position of least resistance. In such an example 
do we find, perhaps, the nearest approach to the 
inauguration of force by the molecules themselves. 
But it is of no value to the materialist, for it makes 
even more apparent the impossibility of force orig- 
inating in the molecules of any of the simple sub- 
stances, for they can not move, or transform their 
potential energy into kinetic energy, without the aid 
of some external agency. It seems clear, therefore, 
that the simple substances of the world are not the 
seat and origin of force. 

In seeking the origin of force we traced force 
through work, intelligibility, intelligence, forethought, 
purpose, and end accomplished, to Mind as the seat 
of power. Let us seek the origin of force by another 
route. Consider your own physical body. Its growth 
and functions and activities depend upon food. The 
food supply is produced by the earth under the in- 
fluence of the sunbeam. The potent elements in the 
sunbeam are light and heat. From whence do light 
and heat originate? We know of but three methods 
of producing heat and light, namely: friction, com- 

133 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


bustion, and electricity. Assuming there was a time 
when the elements of nature were at rest and widely 
scattered in space, like dust sprinkled throughout im- 
mensity, it will be seen that friction in its production 
presupposes some external force or agency which 
originated the movements causing the friction in bring- 
ing the particles together. Combustion also pre- 
supposes some external force or agency which brought 
the elements of combustion together. Likewise does 
electricity—itself a product of friction or combustion 
or motion—presuppose some external force or agency 
causing these activities. Meanwhile, we must remem- 
ber, matter is inert. Where, then, is seated that cause 
which lies back of friction, combustion, and electricity, 
and other activities, and which is apart from the 
chemical elements themselves? It is seated in the 
Divine Mind. 

But on the other hand, if we assume the primordial 
elements of the world as being widely scattered in 
space, though in motion, and that one form of energy 
may be converted into other forms of energy—still 
it is a fact that none of the forms of energy can be 
converted into a living cell. 

It is a fact also that force can not transform inert 
matter into a living organism. The firefly produces 
motion, heat, and light; but motion, heat, and light 
can not be converted into a firefly; neither do dead 
oaks produce live acorns. 

Our personal knowledge of the origin of force con- 
nects it with volition. However, our volition has its 
limitations. We are capable of originating only sim- 

134 


GENESIS OF MATTER, MIND, AND FORCE. 


ple motion by our volition. It is an interesting fact, 
however, that the electric eel by its volition produces 
both motion and electricity, and the firefly by its voli- 
tion produces motion, light, and heat. These powers 
have been delegated by the Supreme Mind to His 
creatures. This fact suggests that the Supreme Mind 
not only originated motion in the universe, but is 
also the origin of heat, light, electricity, magnetism, 
actinism, and chemical affinity, together with the ani- 
mate kingdoms of nature. The natural forces operat- 
ing in the world are but exhibitions of His inherent 
energy. We have a knowledge of immediate and 
personal causation in our own mental sense of effort 
whenever we do anything. This can not be denied. 
In these cases of personal knowledge of the origin 
of force we find force connected with volition, and 
also with purpose and mind. It is, then, a logical 
deduction that the exhibitions of forces in physical 
nature are ultimately connected with that Supreme 
Volition and Purpose and Mind. Man, by means of 
motion, which he originates in his own volition and 
power, has set in operation the thousand activities 
of civilization; and likewise did God set in motion the 
elements of nature, which, under His guidance and 
activity, have resulted in the multitude of activities 
and living forms in the world. 

By faith we understand that the worlds have 
been framed by the word of God, so that what is 
seen hath not been made out of things which ap- 
pear. But what is God, and how shall we think of 
the Supreme Being? We are apt to think of God 

135 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


as in the form of a gigantic man; and to think of 
Him as possessing hands and feet and eyes and brain. 
Such conceptions of God are erroneous, however. 
When we think of God as in the form of a gigantic 
man, it becomes incomprehensible to us how He could 
fill the universe with His presence and be efficient 
in all places. It also becomes incomprehensible to 
us how He could with His huge fingers ever fashion 
the microscopic creatures of this world. We must, 
therefore, think of the all-present God, not as having 
hands or feet or eyes or brain, as a man, but as 
being formless, like the atmosphere, which fills the 
firmament. We must think of this formless Being 
as endowed here and everywhere with life and voli- 
tion; with sight, hearing, feeling, and every physical 
and moral power in their perfections. But is it con- 
ceivable that God, a Spiritual Being, who is invisible, 
impalpable, and imponderable, and yet who is the 
seat of moral and physical power, really occupies the 
universe? The materialist scoffs at the idea. But 
listen: This same skeptic, however, believes implicitly 
in the existence of an all-pervading luminiferous 
ether, which is invisible, impalpable, and imponder- 
able, and yet is said to be more compact and elastic 
than any material substance we can see and handle. 
He implicitly believes in the existence of this in- 
scrutable medium, which is said to pervade the uni- 
verse, and even all material substances, yet he knows 
the luminiferous ether not by induction, but only by 
deduction—just as the theologian knows the existence 
of God. But listen: Is it not possible the materialist 
136 


GENESIS OF MATTER, MIND, AND FORCE. 


has right here discovered the God of the Christian? 
Is it not possible—nay, is not probable—that the 
luminiferous ether which science recognizes is, after 
all, that Infinite Spirit and Mind which is recognized 
and worshiped as God by the Christian world? Yes, 
the materialist has at last discovered God, for God 
and the ether are identical. 


137 


IX. 
THE ORIGIN OF LAW. 


Ir is the claim of materialism that law is eternal, and 
exists independently of God; that law, not God, rules 
the world; and that God is not needed in the universe 
to account for its existence or activities. 

Let us consider, then, the origin and nature of law 
in morals and in physics. In seeking the origin of 
law we must, first of all, discriminate between laws 
and determine their specific differences. We shall 
then be able to classify them and so avoid confusion. 
Laws are legion, yet they may be classified under 
three general heads, viz.: (1) the laws or modes of 
being, (2) the laws of action, and (3) the laws of 
relation. 

1. Let us consider the laws of being. “God is a 
personality.” This is a law of being—of moral being. 
It is the law of His essential existence. It is grounded 
in the necessities of His eternal nature; hence it is 
uncaused, it is eternal. 

“Man is a personality,” is also a law of being— 
of moral being. Man has not always existed; he 
had a beginning; hence this law existed subjectively, 
in God’s thought, before it existed in the world, ob- 
jectively. However, this law had no existence in 
God’s thought apart from the conception of man, 
more than it had existence, objectively, or in the 

138 


ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LAW. 


world, apart from man. This law had no existence 
in the abstract. It had no existence apart from the 
Divine Mind which conceived it, either in time or 
space. We do not think the law of man’s moral being 
was eternal in the thought of God, but was a creation 
of the Divine Mind, which operated according to 
the laws of divine thought, when the occasion for it 
was reached in God’s activities. We do not conceive 
the Divine Mind had the universe, with all its laws 
fully elaborated, eternally in subjective thought, but 
that they unfolded according to the laws of the Divine 
Mind as His work progressed. This does not mean, 
however, that God increases in knowledge, but that 
He is infinite because He is the ground of all knowl- 
edge. It is not necessary to suppose God has forever 
carried all science, fully elaborated, in His thought, 
but that His mind is the eternal ground of all knowl- 
edge. The unfolding and elaboration of knowledge 
is complete and perfect in the Divine Mind, while 
it is imperfect and incomplete in the human mind. 
The laws of being, then, of all that is not God, 
whether it be matter or spirit, have their origin in 
God, their ultimate Cause—they had no existence in 
the abstract. 

2. Notice the laws of action. In the realm of 
morals action always has reference to authority, but 
in physics action always has reference to cause. 

“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God,” is one of the 
moral laws. It supposes at least two personalities, 
the actor and the acted upon. It has not existence, 
either subjective or objective, apart from the actor 

139 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


and the acted upon. It has no abstract existence. 
We may say it did not exist, even in the mind of God, 
until it was there elaborated, according to the laws 
of the Divine Mind, when the occasion for it was 
reached in His creative work. As a law or mode of 
moral action it was not eternal, except as having its 
ground in the inherent qualities and powers of the 
eternal mind of God. 

There are also laws of action in physics. They 
always have reference to cause. ‘Light varies in- 
versely as the square of the distance,” is such a law. 
Time and space are involved in it, and so are the 
four “causes” of Aristotle. In this law of action 
something is acting. Change is wrought by it. This 
change occurs in time and in space. We may call this 
“something” energy or “efficient cause.” In this law 
something is being acted upon. We may call it “sub- 
stance” or “material cause.” We also find another 
factor here. Let it be called “mathematical truth,” 
to satisfy the materialist. It is, however, one of the 
laws belonging to another category—it is one of the 
“laws of relation.” We may properly call it “formal 
cause.” It is the relation of quantity to space, ex- 
pressed in the mathematical ratio, “inversely as the 
square of the distance.” We also see that this law 
of light is intelligible. By this law change always 
proceeds according to the same mathematical ratio. 
This intelligibility points to intelligence as its origin; 
and this intelligence points to personal mind as its 
source. Intelligible action of an intelligent mind al- 
ways is proof of an object or end in view. Here, 

140 


ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LAW. 


then, is “final cause.” But this law is not eternal, 
it does not exist in the abstract, nor was it self-made. 
Motive or end—the “final cause’”—points unmistak- 
ably to an “ultimate cause” back of all as the origin 
of the law. God is the ultimate cause of this law, 
and of all laws of action in physics. 

This is not affirming that God made the “formal 
cause” or mathematical truth found in the law of light, 
however. But it is saying that God formulated the 
law of light. Some scientists have confounded the 
laws of action in physics with the laws of relation. 
It has led them to erroneous conclusions. These two 
kinds of law are widely different in nature and origin, 
and should be distinguished from each other. Having 
dissected the law of light, we may put it together 
again; and what do we have? We have the law of 
action in physics, “Light varies inversely as the square 
of the distance’—a law involving efficient, material, 
formal, final, and ultimate causes, together with time 
and space. 

We would say the law of light and other laws of 
action in physics are not eternal, except as having 
their ground in the inherent powers of the Eternal 
Mind. We do not think they existed even in the 
thought of God until they were conceived, according 
to the laws of His mind, when the occasion was 
reached. 

If the laws of action in physics are “necessary 
laws,” and could not have been otherwise than they 
are, they are so only in their relation to the grand 
scheme of the universe, which was adopted by the 

141 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


Creator. The Creator might have adopted some other 
plan and so have elaborated some other set of physical 
laws. This also holds true of the laws of being, of 
all that is not God. But it is not true of the laws of 
action in morals, for they are what they are by the 
very necessities of the divine nature itself, and not 
by any act of the divine will or choice. 

8. Let us now consider the laws of relation. 
“Transgression of the law is sin,” is one of the laws 
of relation in morals. It is a truth. It supposes 
personality and authority. Just authority inheres in 
the nature of God and is eternal. As an act, con- 
sidered subjectively or objectively, transgression orig- 
inates in the rational decision and elective choice of a 
morally free being. But transgression is also a mode 
of relation in morals. It is the relation of the trans- 
gressor to authority. Obedience is the relation of the 
obedient to authority. But why is obedience good, 
and transgression evil? The choice or will of God 
is not the ultimate ground of difference between good 
and evil; for if it is, then there can be no essential 
difference between the two acts. It would only be a 
difference between good and evil. The moral quality 
of the act and’the moral relation of the actor are, 
therefore, determined by the moral quality of the 
divine nature. Evil and good are what they are by 
the necessities of the divine nature; and the law of 
relation between the transgressor and authority is 
what it is by the necessities of the case. But this 
is not saying the law of relation is eternal. It may 
be necessary, but not eternal. No such relation ex- 

142 


ORIGIN AND NATURE OF LAW. 


isted, even in the thought of God, until the occasion 
for it was reached in His work of creation. It did 
not exist in the abstract. It could not exist anywhere 
in thought—and much less in space—apart from its 
own terms or the persons themselves. 

Now, what is true of the laws of relation in morals 
‘is also true of the laws of relation in physics. We 
often speak of the laws of relation in physics as 
“mathematical truths.” They are what they are by 
the necessities of the case. They are not eternal, 
however, except as they are grounded in the powers 
of the Eternal Mind. ‘The circumference of a circle 
is 3.1416 times its diameter,’ is a law of relation in 
physics. It is what it is by necessity. But such a 
law has no existence in the abstract. It is eternal 
only as it is grounded in the powers of the mind of 
God. 

Now let us sum up. It is evident (1) that the 
laws of action and the laws of being in physics, and 
the laws of being in morals—of all that is not God— 
are what they are by the will of God. They are 
“necessary” laws only as they are related to the 
present plan of the universe—a relative necessity. 

(2) The laws of action and the laws of relation 
in morals are what they are, being determined by the 
nature of God and not by His acts of choice—an 
absolute necessity. 

(3) The laws of relation in physics are what they 
are, being determined by the qualities of the things 
themselves or their terms—an absolute necessity. 

But let it be remembered these “relative neces- 

143 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


sities’ are not eternal, nor are all the “absolute 
necessities” eternal. They have no existence in the 
abstract, or apart from the things themselves, or their 
terms. They may be said to exist first, subjectively, 
or in God’s thought. The conceptions of God have 
their ground in the inherent powers of His infinite 
mind ; hence these “relative necessities’ and “absolute 
necessities” are eternal only as they had their possi-~ 
bilities in God’s mind. But since personality is the 
ultimate form of being, and since thought is the ulti- 
mate form of action, it follows that the law of divine 
being and the law of divine thought only may prop- 
erly be said to be both “necessary” and “eternal.” 

In conclusion, therefore, we may affirm that the 
position of those scientists who declare natural law 
is eternal, and exists independently of God, is found 
to be untenable. 


144 


X. 
SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 


Is MAN immortal? This question is one which can 
not be solved by the experiments of inductive science, 
as the chemist ascertains facts in his laboratory, for 
the soul is invisible, intangible, and beyond the power 
of chemical analysis. However, we have the testi- 
mony of dying saints who speak of seeing friends 
long dead, and angels, and the Savior. Little chil- 
dren at the moment of death have spoken of be- 
holding persons and scenes which belong to another 
world. The dying children certainly were not preju- 
diced in this matter, as they had no knowledge of the 
contentions of materialism, but spoke with honesty 
and truthfulness. Their testimony fully accords with 
the words of Revelation 6: “I saw underneath the 
altar the souls of them that had been slain for the 
word of God, and for the testimony which they held: 
and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, 
O Master, the holy and true, dost Thou not judge 
and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the 
earth? And there was given unto each one a white 
robe; and it was said unto them that they should rest 
yet a little time, until their fellow-servants also and 
their brethren, which should be killed, even as they 
were, should be fulfilled.’ The testimony of the 
dying and of the Scriptures agree in affirming the 
5 145 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


conscious existence of the soul after death. It may 
be objected this is the testimony of the living and 
not of the dead, but it seems altogether possible for 
man to behold both worlds when he stands on the 
border-line between them. 

We often behold visions of our loved and lost 
ones, but it proves but little. 


“Sometimes it seems thy face, thy long-hid face, 

Looks out on me as from a passing cloud, 

Till I forget they clad thee in thy shroud, 

And laid thee sleeping in thy far-off place. 
So once again the tender, healing grace 

Of thy dear presence is to me allowed: 

Wilt thou not bless the head before thee bowed, 
Will not thy voice shrill through the empty space? 
How lone and cold the world without thee seems; 

Regaining thee, how warm it is, and bright! 

Yet all in vain to reach thee do I seek, 
And then I wake to know I have but dreamed, 

And thou art silent as the silent night: 

With tears I call thee—but thou dost not speak.” 


So we visit the grass-grown graves of our dear 
ones; we behold them in visions of the night; but 
they do not return to solve the mysteries of the great 
unknown. The great general law laid down both by 
science and Scripture is, ‘““They have no more a por- 
tion forever in anything done under the sun.” Some 
may have returned by miracle for some special pur- 
pose, but this does not affect the general law. If 

146 


SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 


the dead could return at will, the murdered man 
would disclose his murderer; great truths and precious 
secrets buried with the dead would be made known 
by the disembodied soul; mothers would return to 
comfort broken-hearted children and exhort wayward 
sons—but the universal fact is, they do not return. 

We can not, therefore, look to the dead for in- 
formation on the deep mystery of immortality. There 
are open to us but two sources of information. God 
Himself might tell us. Deductive science may be 
able to inform us. God affirms human immortality 
in Scripture. Human immortality as a fact of de- 
ductive science rests upon certain well-known facts 
and principles. Let us, therefore, consider some of 
the facts and principles upon which the doctrine of 
immortality, as a purely scientific doctrine, rests. 
Among them we notice: 


1. The idea of immortality is practically universal 
among men. 


While the conceptions of the human estate after 
death widely vary, and while among the heathen peo- 
ples of both ancient and modern times they are in 
many instances very crude, still the idea of the sur- 
vival of the soul after death seems to be everywhere 
entertained. It is worthy of note, too, that as pagan- 
ism, whether ancient or modern, becomes more perfect 
in its ethical ideals and in its intellectual refinement, 
the conception of immortality more and more ap- 
proaches the Christian idea in its excellence. 


147 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


2. The idea of immortality is intuitional. 


The universality and the persistence of this idea 
among men must be founded in some sufficient reason. 
Some have tried to account for these facts by regard- 
ing the idea as an inheritance from a primitive reve- 
lation to mankind, and handed down by them from 
generation to generation. It seems, however, that the 
very nature of man requires that such an idea should 
be intuitional. There are some things which man, 
as a moral being, should know by immediate knowl- 
edge. His responsibility demands in him an adequate 
sense of self and of supreme authority, of duty and 
its recompenses, and of destiny. All these ideas are 
actually possessed in greater or lesser development 
by the whole family of man. 

Now, while immortality as an idea may be intu- 
itional, most—if not all of us—get it not by intuition, 
but from our teachers; and while all normal minds 
are capable of possessing the idea by immediate 
knowledge, revelation is indispensable to its highest 
development. 


3. Human immortality is a fact which is funda- 
mental to moral government. 


The proper consideration of this phase of the 
subject requires attention to the relations of the three 
classes of individuals—the infant, the righteous, and 
the wicked—to moral government. 

Man is a rational being, endowed with freedom 
and with a moral sense, and therefore is capable of 
moral obligation and character and reward. Mortal 

148 


SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 


life, in its relation to the demands of moral obliga- 
tion and to the possibilities of moral character, seems 
to be an unfinished existence. On the other hand, 
moral government, in its relation to man’s capacities, 
is an incomplete system without immortality in man. 
As the subject of physical laws and the government 
of nature, the life of man has reference to this present 
world; but as the subject of moral law and govern- 
ment, his life has reference to the higher spiritual 
kingdom. 

In the death of the infant its physical existence 
may have proven a failure, but it does not follow 
that its existence as a moral being has proven a 
failure. The possibilities of the physical nature have 
their realization in this world and concern this world, 
but the possibilities of the higher moral nature have 
their realization in the higher moral kingdom. The 
cutting off of the infant’s relation to this world does 
not presuppose the cutting off of its relation to the 
moral sphere. Death is simply its release from the 
testing of a moral probation. All the possibilities 
for virtue and the blessedness of virtue which lie 
before that soul may still be realized without that 
test. The adaptation of the soul, even in its em- 
bryonic moral state, to existence and activity in a 
purely moral realm, where its high possibilities may 
only be realized, presupposes its immortality. 

Virtue; when subjected to the testing of a proba- 
tion, is rewardable; and vice, the dishonoring of vir- 
tue, is punishable. It seems to be beyond question 
that the righteous and the wicked do not receive the 

149 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


recompenses due them in this present life. Virtue 
may be its own sufficient reward if in a realm where 
it is not impugned or dishonored—but, once dishon- 
ored, its only sufficient reward is in its vindication. 
Virtue is often trampled upon and dishonored in this 
life and goes unvindicated. Vice often flourishes and 
goes unpunished. We know that vice deserves pun- 
ishment and virtue deserves vindication, but when 
may we look for a final allotment of recompenses? 
If death ends all, it should occur before death—but 
we know it does not. How often do the wicked 
flourish like a green bay tree, while the virtuous pass 
their lives in weariness and sorrow, the victims of 
slander and bigotry. Generations pass away and, so 
far as they are concerned, virtue has no vindication 
and wickedness no just reward. 

Again, if death ends all, then death itself must 
be the reward of the wicked; but death thus becomes 
also the only reward of the righteous. Under a just 
moral government, the righteous and the wicked can 
not have the same identical rewards. Under a just 
system of moral government, the immortality of the 
righteous at least seems to be demanded. 

Now, as déath itself can not be regarded as the 
reward of the righteous, neither can it be regarded 
as the reward of the wicked. Physical death is simply 
incidental to human existence. If annihilation awaits 
the soul at all, it must be inflicted after death and not 
at death. Existence after the death of the body is 
clearly demanded in the case of the infant for its 
realization of character, unattained and unattainable 

150 


SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 


in this life; it is demanded in the case of the righteous 
and of the wicked for the vindication of virtue and 
the just treatment of vice. 

Without an existence for man after death, human 
hope and duty and history have no reasonable ex- 
planation, man is a misfit in the system of nature 
and his creation inexplicable. 


4. The dogma of human immortality has met many 
denials, not however so much from the opposers 
of natural science as from the enemies of religious 
doctrine. 


Perhaps the latest and most potent objection of- 
fered on scientific grounds to the doctrine of human 
immortality is that which declares the soul to be 
but a product of the union of the male and female 
reproductive cells—the spermatozoon and the egg. 
Since the existence of the soul has its beginning in 
the union of these two elements, it follows, so it is 
affirmed, that its existence must end with the death 
or dissolution of these elements. 

This objection leads us at once into the profound- 
est depths of the mystery of human life. In groping 
our way into this realm of mystery we may take, as 
our point of departure, one of the old landmarks: 
“The earthly life of man had a beginning.” Every 
animal and every plant begins its existence as a single 
cell. Its growth is simply the division of the original 
cell into parts, accompanied by a specialization of 
those parts. The fundamental powers reside within 
the cell. They are not phenomena merely of some 

151 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


chemical compound, but belong only to the organism 
or machine known as the cell. The physical founda- 
tion of life is something more than a chemical com- 
pound. Life is something more than a mere problem 
in chemistry. Chemical forces and agents exist in 
nature, to be sure, and they might be able to produce 
any kind of a chemical compound, but they are 
totally inadequate to produce a living organism or 
explain the origin of the living cell. The origin of 
life is not hidden merely in some secret formula of 
chemical compounds; it lies back of all such formulas. 

Life proceeds from antecedent life. The living 
cells, as we observe them, have been produced from 
similar living cells. They are not the product of 
chemical forces alone. The child is like its parents, 
because both child and parents have come from two 
particles of the same kind of germ plasm. This 
germ plasm has been handed down from generation 
to generation. It was originally created of certain 
chemical elements by the Creator, and was by Him 
given an organic structure, together with the power 
of reproduction. 

Within this organic germ plasm in mankind, how- 
ever, was incorporated an element which is subject 
not to physical laws, but to the laws of mind. For 
convenience we may call this peculiar element the 
soul plasm. It was not created of any of the chemical 
elements, but was derived from the divine essence— 
which we conceive to be identical with ether. It was 
an atom of the ether. It was incorporated within 
the male reproductive cell or spermatozoon, and be- 

152 


SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 


came the origin of the activities of the germ plasm. 
It was the living element. God and the human soul 
are identical in their essence. St. Paul says, “We are 
His offspring.” But God and the human soul differ 
in their attributes and properties, both in number and 
degree. When God created man, He endowed an 
atom of the ether or divine essence with the attributes 
which belong to the soul; He clothed it with a physical 
organism, and so man had his beginning. 

The vital element in all living things in the king- 
dom of nature is identical in essence in every Case, 
but with the difference that among the different forms 
and types of life there is a wide variation in the 
qualities and attributes with which the Creator en- 
dowed them. Each has been peculiarly endowed and 
fitted for its own sphere of life. This vital element, 
or soul plasm, of whatever degree of endowment, was 
derived originally from the Creator. What, then, 
becomes of the vital element of the plant or the ani- 
mal when death overtakes it? The physical organism 
returns to dust, to its original chemical elements; and 
it is conceivable that the vital element returns to the 
ether from which it was derived. We shall, however, 
point out a well-founded exception to such absorption 
by the ether in the case of mankind. 

Let us now turn to the question of human genesis. 
The egg, or female element of reproduction, is a cell 
which consists of vital substance, nucleus, chromo- 
somes, and nucleolus. The spermatozoon, or male re- 
productive cell, is smaller than the egg, and is of dif- 
ferent form. It contains cell substance, a nucleus 

153 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


with chromosomes, and a centrosome. The male cell 
is also provided with a tail, by means of which it 
moves about. When these two reproductive cells are 
brought into contact, the spermatozoon buries its head 
in the egg; the tail by which it has propelled itself 
is afterward dropped off, and the head, which contains 
the centrosome and the chromosomes, passes on into 
the egg. The chromosomes constitute the only por- 
tions of the fertilized egg which are derived from 
both parents. The chromosomes form that part of 
the cell which contains the hereditary traits handed 
down from the parents to the offspring. The cell 
substance is handed down from the mother. The 
centrosome is derived from the father. The centro- 
some contains the vital atom, while the egg, or female 
reproductive cell, contains the physical man in poten- 
tial form; the spermatozoon possesses life, volition, 
and power, together with all those basal principles 
which belong to the soul. This living, moving soul- 
germ is not a product of chemical forces and agents 
alone, but is derived from living soul plasm in the 
generative organs of the male parent. 

The human soul, therefore, is not a mere phe- 
nomenon produced by the union of the male and 
female elements of reproduction, to perish when that 
union is dissolved by death. It is the creation of the 
male parent from soul plasm, which has been handed 
down from generation to generation, and had its 
original descent from the divine essence. It has a 
real, though primitive, embryonic existence. Let it 
be noted, this existence began before the union of 

154 


de) eatin. 


SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 


the egg and spermatozoon took place. It may, there- 
fore, continue to exist after that union has been dis- 
solved by death. Science affords no proof of the 
death of the soul, but by many deductions seems 
rather to establish the fact of its persistent life even 
after physical death. But what becomes of this vital 
atom, or soul, after death? The physical organism 
returns to the chemical elements. Its elements are 
not lost. Nothing in the universe is ever absolutely 
lost or destroyed—hence the vital atom does not perish 
from existence. The soul either returns to the ether 
from which it was originally derived, or it continues 
to exist in new relations to the universe, as a distinct 
personality. The superior endowments of man, his 
moral freedom, and his existence under moral law 
subject to rewards and penalties, all point with un- 
deniable force to a continuance of his distinct personal 
existence after he has fallen a prey to physical death. 


5. The dissolution of the body in death does not pre- 
suppose the destruction of the soul. 


The relation between soul and body is that of co- 
existence, not of identity. The abstract possibility 
of the existence of the soul apart from the body 
admits of no denial. Every real existence must be 
assumed to continue until its annihilation has been 
proven. The burden of proof thus will be seen to 
lie upon the advocates of annihilation. The annihila- 
tion of the soul, however, has not yet been proven. 
In the endeavor to prove it, however, it is said that 
thought is a function of the brain; hence if the brain 

155 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


be destroyed the soul must perish. The error here 
is due to failure in distinguishing between a form 
of being and a form of action. The destruction of 
the brain serves only to prove the ending of a par- 
ticular form of the soul’s action, namely, the act of 
thinking. The cessation of some particular form of 
the activity of the soul or personal being does not 
presuppose the annihilation of the being itself. 

Personality is a form of being—it is the ultimate 
form of being. It has several native, inherent prop- 
erties. Among them may be mentioned life and self- 
consciousness. Thought is a form of action. It has 
its origin in the soul itself. The brain is simply the 
mechanism employed by the soul in producing this 
form of action. Thought and all other forms of the 
soul’s action, exercised through the agency of the 
brain or physical organism, may cease without affect- 
ing the personal being itself, its life, or any other 
of its native properties. The disembodied soul may 
live and be self-conscious and may know without the 
act of thinking. Thought by means of a brain may, 
indeed, be one of the limitations placed upon the 
soul which is removed at death. The soul still pre- 
serves its identity, and is still capable of acting 
through the agency of the brain, if it should again 
inhabit a brain. 

In the endeavor, further, to prove the annihilation 
of the soul in the death of the brain, it has been 
claimed that life is a function of the brain; hence, 
destroy the brain and the soul must perish. The 
error here is due to failure in distinguishing between 

156 


2 


SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 


the personal being itself and one of its native, in- 
herent properties. Life is a property of the soul. 
The brain lives simply because the living personality 
resides within it. The brain dies when the living 
personality goes out of it. Life has no objective ex- 
istence apart from personal being. To be is not a 
function of the brain, but to do is its function. Hence 
the function of the brain may be destroyed at death 
without affecting the personality itself or its capacity 
for action. 


6. In our conception of God, we think of Him as a 
living, self-conscious, personal Being, who ewists 
and acts independently of any physical organism. 


Assuming God’s existence—and we are compelled 
to assume our own—it is not inconceivable that man 
may also exist and act apart from a physical or- 
ganism. The necessity for the physical in man is a 
mark of human finiteness. He requires a brain and 
physical senses that he may interpret the facts of the 
world and be able to realize its possibilities. Man 
acquires knowledge through consecutive thought in 
the processes of conception, reasoning, and judgment. 
God does not acquire knowledge, but the Infinite Mind 
is in itself the ground of knowledge. Knowledge is 
the relation of living, self-conscious personality to 
reality—the relation of the knowing to the know- 
able. Knowledge may be mediate or immediate. Di- 
vine knowledge is immediate. Human knowledge is 
both mediate and immediate. When a store of knowl- 
edge has been acquired mediately or by sense-percep- 

157 | 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


tion, it may be possible for man to continue in a 
self-enclosed rational life apart from a brain. But 
even though all mediate knowledge should perish with 
the brain, still the soul itself and its immediate 
knowledge, together with its capacity for acquiring 
mediate knowledge, may not be affected. If God, a 
purely spiritual Being, knows and acts without the 
agency of a physical organism, it is conceivable that 
man in a disembodied state may be capable of similar 
action. 

It may be objected, however, that God in a purely 
spiritual state is in His normal state of being, while 
man in his disembodied state is in an abnormal state 
of being, thus breaking down the analogy. But it 
may be urged that the physical life in man is simply 
preparatory to a final spiritual existence; hence, since 
God in His perfect estate is capable of life and action 
and knowledge, it seems certain that man in his per- 
fected estate must also be capable pt life and action 
and knowledge. 


7. The indestructibility of matter points by analogy 
to the indestructibility of the soul. 


The chemical element bears the same relation to 
the physical world that the soul does to the moral 
world. The chemical element, as gold, may be com- 
pounded with other elements; yet it still is gold. In 
a similar way the spiritual element, as the soul of 
man, may be united with a physical nature, yet it 
still is a soul. 

Then, again, the assayer may separate the chem- 

158 


SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 


ical elements. He does not destroy them. He simply 
separates them. Their relation to each other is now 
changed. The compound no longer exists, but the 
chemical elements still exist. In a similar way death 
may separate the soul from the physical body. It 
does not destroy the elements of the body—it simply 
separates them; and it does not destroy the soul—it 
simply liberates it from union with the body. The 
compound of chemical and spiritual elements no 
longer exists, though the elements themselves are not 
destroyed. Their relations to each other have merely 
changed. 

Furthermore, since the properties of the gold in 
its simple state are more easily distinguished and 
more perfectly displayed than they are in its com- 
pounded state, it follows that the properties of the 
soul may in some degree be masked and undiscovered 
in its union with the body. Death may be the un- 
masking of the soul, just as assaying is the unmasking 
of the gold. In any event, the gold and the soul both 
survive the process of assaying and of death. 


8. The present existence of the soul warrants the 
assumption of its continued existence in the ab- 
sence of proof that death destroys it. 


We do not know just what death is. We know 
only its effects, or some of them. As the soul and 
body co-exist, but are not identical, proof of the dis- 
memberment of the body by death is not proof of the 
destruction of the soul. As death is not the destruc- 
tion of the simple chemical elements composing the 

159 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


body, it also is not the destruction of the soul, or 
simple spiritual element. Death seems to be rather 
the open door to man’s higher estate of being, much 
as birth is to his lower estate. 


9. It is often objected that human immortality must 
also suppose the immortality of the brutes, or some 
of them. 


So far as I am concerned, I hope they are im- 
mortal, or some of them at least. Much of the charm 
of the forest and field is lost here without them; and 
if man in the hereafter has endowments and capacities 
as in this present time, much will be added to the 
charm of the Elysian fields by their presence. The 
home of the perfected man must be something more 
than a place of wandering minstrels, or a state of 
inactive ease. It must be thoroughly adapted to man 
in all the powers of his perfected nature. We find 
sweet communion and sympathy with God as we study 
nature and sympathize with the creatures He has 
made; and so, in the regions of the blessed, we may 
even know God better in the unhampered study of 
His works and in the more perfect sympathy with His 
humbler creatures. 

But human immortality does not necessarily pre- 
suppose the immortality of the brutes. The argument 
for human immortality, based upon the fact of the 
present existence of the soul, proves as much, perhaps, 
for the immortality of the brute as it does for man; 
but the probability of human immortality is not argued 
so much from the fact of the soul’s present existence 

160 


SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 


as from its adaptation as a moral being to immortal 
life. If the brute possesses no moral quality, and is 
not subject to moral government, there appears. no 
reason why it should share, for its own sake merely, 
with rational beings in immortality. However, we 
conceive that it might do so for the sake of rational 
beings, or even on purely sentimental grounds. 


10. The existence of a First Cause presupposes im- 
mortality in man. 


The infinite perfection of the First Cause in wis- 
dom and power is in itself the promise and guarantee 
of a universe illustrating and in keeping with that 
wisdom and power. Man is in himself proof of a 
disposition and purpose and power in the First Cause 
to create him. Man, with all his physical and mental 
and moral possibilities, is simply the fulfillment of a 
prophecy. As a rational and responsible being, ca- 
pable of immortality, his existence and destiny are 
entirely consistent with the wisdom and power of 
his Infinite Creator. Since the First Cause is what 
it is, man is what he is; and since man and the First 
Cause are what they are in their relation to each other, 
immortality is a necessity in man. 

If God, as Eternal Mind, be admitted a place 
in the universe, immortality in a being capable of 
receiving it must be admitted. If, on the other hand, 
God, as Eternal Mind, be denied a place in the uni- 
verse, and eternal matter be claimed as the seat of 
all energy and life, still all the facts of infinite power 
and wisdom in the First Cause, together with all the 

hy 161 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


facts of the created physical and moral universe, re- 
main the same, and immortality must be admitted in 
beings capable of receiving it. 

Again, the inherent powers of the First Cause— 
without reference to the question of its identity— 
was the promise and prophecy of all intelligible 
forms of being and of action. If we but knew all 
the facts of the created universe, we might know the 
First Cause most fully, for they illustrate the char- 
acter and attributes and powers of the First Cause. 
And again, if we but knew the First Cause to per- 
fection, we might know all the facts of the created 
universe, for in the powers of the First Cause was 
the possibility and prophecy of those facts. 

In the First Cause was the promise of mortal 
life to the brute—that form of being capable of re- 
ceiving only that form of life. In the First Cause 
was the promise of immortal life to the angel—that 
form of being capable of receiving only that form of 
life. And in the First Cause was the promise and 
possibility of man, the creature of both mortality and 
immortality. Moreover, the facts of human life and 
duty and character point to human immortality—they 
actually demand it. Whatever is demanded for the 
completion of an intelligible plan may be rationally 
expected; and whatever is consistent with an all- 
sufficient First Cause can not be reasonably denied; 
therefore, since man exists, the creature of a Creator, 
immortality must not be denied him. 


162 


SCIENCE AND IMMORTALITY. 


11. The denial of a First Cause is an acknowledg- 
ment of human immortality. 


If the existence of a First Cause be denied; if all 
creative acts as beginnings be denied; and if it should 
be affirmed that the world is eternal, having passed 
successively through vast cycles of development and 
change from apparent chaos to orderly forms—which 
cycles ever recur, like the oscillation of a swinging 
pendulum, from everlasting to everlasting—even then, 
man, the spiritual element, has existed from the most 
distant eternity, just as has the gold or simple chem- 
ical element, and, like the gold, is destined to exist 
forever. That this is true, we think, is incontro- 
vertible, or at least can not be successfully denied. 

If the soul has existed forever as an element in 
the world-scheme and has not lost its identity in all 
that past eternity, with its many changes of relation, 
from the time of the whirling fire-mist to the era of 
the perfect physical man, it certainly is not incon- 
ceivable that man should continue to exist after death 
in new and even unsuspected relations to the universe. 
Moreover, even if, after all, there prove to be no 
God or First Cause, still all the facts of human life— 
physical, mental, and moral—all the facts of human 
obligation, of virtue, and of vice, together with their 
recompenses, remain wholly unchanged. If a First 
Cause exists but should be destroyed, many of these 
facts would be lost in that destruction; but if there 
actually be no First Cause all these facts exist, and 
continue to exist irrespective of our speculations upon 


163 


THE CHALLENGE OF THE CHURCH. 


the subject. And who shall say that these facts, 
grounded as they assuredly are in human conscious- 
ness, are not consistent with the eternal world-scheme, 
which is sweeping on to the consummation of another 
splendid cycle in cosmic history—a cycle so vast as 
to be beyond the calculation of our mathematics and 
beyond imagination? 

Wisdom, whose excellent impress is stamped in 
all the forms and features of the world around us, 
forbids that man, her noblest work, shall prove a sad 
misfit at last, stamping Wisdom with the name of 
Folly. 

Power, which is everywhere exhibited in the king- 
doms of this world, forbids that man, who sways Om- 
nipotence, should, after all, prove weakest of the 
weak. 

And Love, whose tender sympathies are so woven 
into all the fabric of earthly life, forbids that man 
shall utterly perish from existence and in death be 
robbed of future activity and joys of which Love 
has dreamed. 


164 


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